Our Legend in Everfree
by AlexLoneWolf
Summary: What was planned as a simple school camping trip might prove to be more trouble than fun for a couple of transfer students. Despite strange occurrences at the camp, newly formed bonds will come to light, and old ones will undergo significant changes. One student must keep this in mind as he finds himself tackling emotions that have been kept underneath a mask for the longest time.
1. Summer Song

The crunching sound of dry leaves and twigs being crushed underneath my boots were all I could hear as I strived to bring myself as far away from my pursuer as possible. My hand remained clenched on my right shoulder as I panted heavily, each breath inciting a sharper pain than the last. When I finally couldn't take it any longer, I hid behind a bundle of hay and caught my breath. I took a look at my right shoulder to notice that the entirety of my shirt had been nearly dyed with a dark shade of red. It almost appeared as if I had been bathed in a sea of red wine.

I looked behind me for a short moment, praying that I had lost the hunter that was dead-set on catching me. However, I could hardly move, and I was nearly set on remaining in the same spot for whatever drop of life I still clung to. I took a look in front of me and noticed that the exit doors had been opened. If I hadn't been hit, I could have had a clear shot in escaping, but my state of health was currently slowing me down. If I pushed myself to my limit, I could end up bringing myself closer to my demise.

Behind me, I could hear the revving of a chainsaw in the distance.

Please don't come this way. Please don't come this way.

In the next moment, I heard footsteps stomping on the grass nearby, frightening me. I was afraid that this was the end of the road for me.

"Chase!" I heard a whisper shout out.

I gasped shortly when I noticed the person approaching me.

"Faith! I'm hurt bad. I just _barely_ managed to escape. The other two. They didn't make it. I tried to save one of them, but I was too late, and I started getting chased." I told her.

"We can still make it." She answered as she worriedly brought out a red tin box that she was able to find. She began patching me up as quickly as she could. "I've got you. I managed to open the exit right near us. We can still make it out alive!"

We heard the revving of a chainsaw once more in the distance, but this time, the sound grew louder.

"You don't have to stay behind for me." I told her. "You can go on without me. I can distract him long enough for you to escape."

"Are you kidding?" She asked. "There's no way I'd leave you behind."

My heart began racing and my hands began sweating when our hunter was only seconds away from us. I didn't believe he knew exactly where we had been, but he was sure to find us soon.

"Faith…!" I worriedly whispered.

"There!" She returned back. "Let's go! Come on!"

The hay bale we had been hiding behind had suddenly been ripped into pieces by a chainsaw that was dangerously close to the both of us.

"Aah!" Faith screamed, falling backward onto the ground.

I quickly dug my hand into my pocket and found a set of firecrackers I had managed to scavenge earlier. I immediately lit them up and threw them towards the hunter. He became blinded and deafened as a result, allowing me to grab a hold of Faith's hand and pull her up.

"Move!" I ordered, allowing her to run up ahead while I stayed behind her.

We were within about a hundred feet away from the exit when we heard the sound of a chainsaw starting up yet again. I took a glance behind me to notice the hunter closing in ridiculously fast.

"We need to get behind a tree or something!" Faith fearfully suggested.

I noticed that we had been passing a short barrier with an upright pallet between two empty barrels. "I've got this!" The hunter was practically on my tail, but as swiftly as I could, I knocked the pallet down and caused our chaser to stumble about and groan with a heavy muffle to his voice.

"We're right there!" I heard Faith cry out.

The hunter had just finished shredding the pallet into pieces and began to rev up his chainsaw once more in an attempt to catch us just before we could escape. Staying behind Faith, I concentrated solely on the front. I could now feel myself sweating all over. Without even having to look behind me, I could just _tell_ he was inching closer and closer to me. I had been expecting to be hit at the very last second, but just before his chainsaw could come swinging down, we had made it just past the barrier. We were now running endlessly to safety.

However, it was only a matter of time before we'd be trapped with another hunter with a hungering thirst for blood.

* * *

"Haah." I sighed heavily as I leaned back in my chair and away from my computer. "That was way too close."

"I know, right?" I heard in my headset. "Geez, what were those guys doing? It's like they were noobs or something."

"Might have been." I acknowledged. "We were noobs at one point too, you know?"

"Yeah, you're right… Hey. You up to play some Overlook? I need to reach a certain rank before the season ends and the teammates I've been getting have been more than unhelpful."

"Yeah, sure." I closed the game down and prepared to load the next one up. "Afterwards, maybe we can—"

I suddenly paused in the middle of my response as I had unexpectedly heard a faint call coming from outside my headphones. It wasn't clear, but based on previous experiences, I had a good idea of what it had been. "Hang on. I think my parents are calling me."

"Okay." I heard back before I removed my headphones and placed them down on the desk. I sighed lightly as I opened my door and walked out and down the stairs to the living room. There, I saw them seeming to sort through mail. "Did you call me?"

"Your school's having a field trip next week." My dad responded a little sternly. "You're going, right?"

"Uhh…" I immediately began feeling a little awkward. I already sensed that this conversation was going to go downhill from here. "I didn't plan to…?"

"Chase, don't you think you should go out sometime instead of spending your entire break in your room?" My mom threw into the discussion.

"I _literally_ just started on my break, mom." I mentioned, feeling an injection of irritation flood my attitude. "For the first time in years, I've been just sort of letting my brain shut down and unwind. I never got to do this when I was still at Crystal Prep."

"Speaking of Crystal Prep," My dad interjected, causing me to heavily sigh inside my mind. "You're not attending that school anymore, remember?" He reminded a bit bitterly. I suppose they were still a bit salty about me leaving the academy. "So, since you're not preparing yourself for university anymore, I don't see why you need to spend the whole break doing nothing but playing video games."

 _Ugghhhhhhhh._ I _LITERALLY_ just started on my break! What's so hard to understand about that?!

"Dad, I told you." I repeated. "I don't remember the last time I've just stayed in my room and let myself think about anything else besides keeping my grades up. It's not like I've been doing this every day of my life. I just want to destress without worrying about some little thing in the back of my mind. Can I have that? Please?"

Despite my plea, my father didn't look too convinced. "I'm not going to force you to keep studying for a school you no longer attend, but I don't want you staying in your room the whole break on your computer. Your mother and I want you to go on the field trip and at least _learn_ a few things and be productive for once."

You guys are seriously hypocrites. So, I wasn't being productive at Crystal Prep? WTF?

"Come on. I said I didn't want to go to that camp." I was on verge of getting on my knees in order to ask for just some peace and quiet around here. "You know I'm still doing my chores around here. I _just_ cut the yard yesterday!"

"The workload you'll be getting from school is going to be much less than when you were in Crystal Prep." My dad continued to constantly remind me of that dreaded school. "I told you that I don't want you to be in your room to only come out to do your chores. Otherwise, you'll start forgetting every little thing you learned from Crystal Prep if you don't work your brain like you used to. I _know_ you're not going to be in there reading books, so you're _going_ to this camp, Chase. Learn something useful for once."

The dam holding back the boiling fury of the sea was at its breaking point. There was no point in arguing. In fact, besides moving to Canterlot High School, I couldn't remember ever winning an argument against them when it came to something like this. I was done, and I knew to try to fight it would only make things worse.

" _Fine! I'll go!_ " I exclaimed in frustration and began storming up the stairs to my room.

I honestly felt like a child lashing out like that, but how else was I suppose to react?! Whenever they just _decided_ things for me like this, I couldn't help but just want to make a hole in the wall!

I almost slammed my door shut, but I managed to quickly slow down the momentum to a firm close. I didn't want to get any more flak like I usually did the last few times I slammed my door in the same way my sister would always get away with doing.

I carelessly dropped myself in front of my seat and sighed heavily before I extended out my arms and placed on my headphones.

"…are you okay?" I heard before I could announce my return.

"H-huh?!" I responded in surprise.

"You left your mic on…" She informed.

I slapped my face with my hand and slowly slid it towards my chin. "I'm so done… You know that camping trip we were invited to?"

"You mean the one in a few days?" She asked.

"Yeah. Well, it looks like I'm going to be spending an entire week of our break there. Apparently, my parents think I'm losing brain cells staying here. You know, since I'm not working my butt off studying for some stupid thing for Crystal Prep."

"Ooh…" Faith dejectedly returned. "Sorry, Chase…"

I shrugged even though she couldn't see it. "Whatever. I guess if I think about it, it still beats being at Crystal Prep. I mean, _seriously_! If they would have just _talked_ to me about it and maybe _encouraged_ me to go, I probably would've been mutually convinced. I _hate_ when they just decide things for me like that."

"To be honest, I actually wanted to talk to you about going, but I guess I was a little too late..." She mentioned.

"Huh?" I cocked my eyebrow in response.

"Well, with the information we were given, it sounded like a lot of fun, you know? We've roasted marshmallows outside the beach house a few times, but I don't think we've actually ever _really_ camped out before. I don't know what to say. Doesn't it sound super fun? Besides, it'll be kind of like our little getaway."

"When you say it like that, it _does_ sound pretty nice." I acknowledged as I averted my eyes away from my computer screen. "See, if they encouraged me like that, I probably wouldn't have minded going." I paused to sigh once more. "Well, since I'm pretty much going for sure, I'll guess we'll be going together?"

"Don't worry, Chase!" Faith cheerfully invigorated through the microphone. "I promise you, with me around, everything is going to be a butt-load of fun!"

I couldn't help but smile warmly at the sound of her whole-hearted voice. "Yeah, yeah." I listened to her hum for a bit as she seemed to mess with something on her end, allowing me to think for a bit. "Hey. You want to go out?" I asked.

"Huh?!" It sounded like something dropped from her side.

"Well, my parents kind of killed the mood for video games, so I thought it'd be nice to get out of the house like they apparently want me to do." I clarified. "Are you hungry? Or, do you want to go get some ice cream or something?"

"O-Oh!" She returned. "Y-Yeah! Sure! Ice cream sounds good right about now, actually! You want me to meet you outside of your house?"

"Sure." I decided. "I just need to do a few things around here and I'll meet you outside.

"Kay. I'll see you in a few."

We disconnected from our party chat, giving me the chance to change my wardrobe and slip my socked feet into some shoes. After I spruced myself up a bit and aligned my hair as closely as I wanted it to, I began walking down the stairs towards the front door as I patted my pockets to make sure I had my phone, wallet, and keys for the bike.

Just as I made my way down the last step, I felt a sudden vibration from my pocket and dug my hand inside. After pulling up my phone, I checked the screen to find that I had received a text from Faith.

 _I'm outside._ _ヾ_ _(*´∀_ _*)_ _ﾉ_

"I'm going out for a bit." I called out towards the living room with no intention of actually stepping foot inside. "Figured I'd get a head start in not 'being in my room all the time'." I mentioned that last part a bit bitterly before I went ahead and walked out the front door. Feeling a little frustrated, I sighed lightly as I stared at the ground for some time while heading for the sidewalk by the neighborhood street. However, I unexpectedly heard a few hurried footsteps before something suddenly bumped against me.

"Hey!"

I looked up after being slightly pushed back and found her eyes practically staring into mine. She held her hands together and stretched her arms out behind her back, giving me a full view of her wardrobe. She wore what appeared to be a bluish thin and light hoodie that was zipped up ever only slightly. Beneath that seemed to be one of her flexible loose-fitting shirts. Not an oversized shirt, but one of those "fashionable" tops for girls. Moving towards her legs, I could tell that she was wearing short shorts, but her hoodie nearly made it look as if she was wearing a short dress. Aside from that, she was wearing dark blue knee-length socks to complement her pink high-top canvas sneakers.

"W-What are you looking at?" She asked.

I had been paying too much attention to her wardrobe that I didn't notice her face grow noticeably embarrassed because of it.

"Oh, nothing. Sorry." I apologized, fidgeting the front strand of my hair a bit while slightly averting my gaze away from her. "You just look really pretty today."

"Here we go again." She mentioned, turning her flushed cheeks away from me. "Geez, if we weren't as close as we were now, I'd definitely think you were some kind of creep."

"Are you serious?" I nearly felt offended by her words that were accompanied with a set of puffed cheeks and pursed lips. "Isn't telling a girl she's pretty supposed to be a good thing for their self-esteem? You and I know the kind of drama that goes between all the girls. I mean, they insult each other by calling each other fat or ugly, for crying out loud."

"I'm just messing with you." Faith returned to her jubilant smile, a smudge of redness remaining above her cheeks. "Yes. Girls love being told that they're pretty. So long as it's not from some creepy-looking dude or stalker."

"There you go." I told her before I started heading for my bike. "Let's go. I'm starting to feel like my parents are watching me right now."

"Maybe I should say hi?" She mentioned both half-jokingly and half-serious.

"Don't bother." I answered with a slightly exhausted tone. "I don't need them asking me stupid questions about us again."

"…right." Faith replied with before following me on my bike.

"So, where are we going?" I asked as I swung my leg around the seat of my bike.

"You're the driver. I thought you already knew." Faith hopped onto the back and held her legs over the left side of the back wheel.

I shrugged. "Do you want to go to the place we usually go, or maybe someplace different this time?"

"Hm…" Faith thought to herself as she momentarily stared at her swinging legs. "Oh! Actually, this new restaurant opened up not too long ago! They serve food there, but I hear they've got totes amazing ice cream too!"

"Oh, really?" I exchanged as I turned my head over to what was in front of me. "I guess we'll check it out then. What's it called?"

"Uh…" She tapped her cheek a bit with her index finger. "C-oinky Dink something? It's like this super old-fashioned diner. I know where it is. Just get to pedaling and I'll give you the directions as we go." She certified with a firm wink of her left eye.

* * *

When I first saw the building, I didn't know what to think. At face value, it didn't necessarily look like a diner until you saw the diner portion of the building. I'm not sure if it was intended when this place was designed, but anyone walking by would first notice the giant "hot rod" car stacked on top of the building before realizing this place was a diner. Was that even safe?

"This is the place." Faith mentioned as if she was able to read what was on my mind and began walking towards the double doors on the side. I caught myself staring at the giant car on top for too long before I shook my head and jogged over to Faith, who was already more than ready to walk right on in.

The sound of "oldies" music filled the building for the most part, but it was mostly overshadowed by the sound of chatter from each direction where we stood. I dug my hands into my pockets as I looked around, searching for an open spot at the same time.

Faith glanced over at me with a small smile before she walked on ahead, leading me towards a spot she found suitable. It was a booth over at the corner, and as we sat down, we noticed waitresses whiz by on roller skates.

"Ooh." Faith noticed as she rested her chin on top of her hand. "That's so cool. I wish I could do that."

"You've never tried to learn?" I asked.

"I did, but being the 'klutz' I am, all I did was hurt myself. Hehe." She giggled.

"Hi, welcome!" We heard a high-pitched and cheerful voice greet us. "What can I get for you?" She asked as she placed a couple of menus in front of us.

"Uh, I think we'll need a—" Before I could finish my sentence, I turned to take a look at our waitress to find something surprisingly familiar with her. She wore her hair in a ponytail this time, and she obviously wore the work's uniform to boot. However, I didn't think any of us could mistake the ready-to-pounce-at-any-second eyes that were glued to her face for someone else's, not to mention the pink bouncy curls of her hair. "Pinkie?"

"Oh, _hey_!" She noticed the both of us and leaned in closer to take a better look. "It's _you_ two! I didn't see you come in!"

"You work here, Pinkie?" Faith turned her body to the right in order to face our waitress directly. "That's so cool! I didn't know that!"

"I come and help out here every now and then." She balanced the corner of one of the menus she held and spun it around perfectly. "I've only been here since the opening, but everybody seems to know my name already!"

"Who wouldn't?" I mentioned, given her friendly and strangely unique outgoing nature.

"In that case!" Pinkie suddenly lurched forward with eyes wide open. "How about I recommend you two something? Anything, in particular, you're looking for?" She raised up a notepad and somehow managed to use the tip of her hair to grab a pencil that was hidden underneath.

"We were looking to get some ice cream." Faith answered. "I heard it's really good here."

"You're _totally_ right about that!" Pinkie ecstatically confirmed. "With that in mind, we've actually got a special going on right now!" She opened up her menu and turned it around to point something out towards us. "Couples are always coming in and getting this one! It comes with two bananas and three scoops of your choosing! Not to mention it comes with an incredible drizzle of caramel all over." She licked her lips and rolled her eyes upwards as if she was imagining the thought of partaking this ice cream for herself. "Plus, if you take a picture together, you get a nice discount!"

"Sounds great! What do you say, Chase?" Faith asked me.

I lightly twisted the tip of my hair as I found myself possibly too obsessed with the way Pinkie had worded her recommendation.

"Yeah, I don't mind, but we aren't—"

"I'll put it in right away! What d'ya want for your three flavors?"

"Strawberry." Faith responded first.

"…chocolate." I hesitantly answered after being cut off earlier.

"And the last one?"

Faith and I turned towards each other for a short moment before we blurted it out together.

"Vanilla."

"Got it!" Pinkie made note of it and prepared to skate on over behind the counter to deliver the order. "Be right back!"

I felt unnecessarily troubled when she left. I caught myself roaming my eyes around the diner, sometimes unintentionally staring at something in particular before Faith's voice snapped me out of whatever moment I had to myself.

"You alright?" She asked.

"Yeah…" The words coming out of my mouth weren't as confident as before, and I especially noticed that myself. Although, I didn't know how to bring myself back to the way I was just a few moments ago. I was surprised to see that Faith wasn't as bothered as I was. In fact, I wasn't sure if she hadn't caught what Pinkie Pie had mentioned a few seconds earlier, or if I was just overreacting for once. "Hey, um, I meant to ask you about something." I reached for a certain topic after having spent some time in an attempt to change the subject. "That video you and Sunset Shimmer did. How's that been going?"

"It's been going great, Chase!" Faith excitedly answered, placing her hands on the table. "Sunset was able to delete that old video from the Freshman Fair. I almost still can't believe that she apologized and told everyone who watched her old video the truth. She really _is_ a completely different person compared to who she was back freshman year."

"Yeah. I guess I'm finding it hard to believe a little myself. You don't think she's secretly still evil and planning to ruin every one of us when the moment's right, do you?" I joked.

"After the show she gave us at the Friendship Games? Definitely not." Faith replied confidently. "In fact, she might have you on the run for your money."

"What do you mean…?" I asked, especially noticing Faith's odd smirk.

"I used to consider Sunset Shimmer my best friend back during freshman year. Maybe she'll snatch that place back from right under your feet soon?" She slowly leaned in towards me, looking at me with a mischievous grin.

" _Oh_ , yeah." I allowed her to have her fun. It would be dumb of me to think that she was actually serious.

She lightly giggled back before returning to her original posture. "…what about you?" She now questioned me. "Anything new happen ever since your phone contact list blew up?"

I turned towards my phone and took a glance at the list she referred to. It was still unreal to this point. Before the Friendship Games, I didn't have many contacts in my phone. Now, I was staring at an entire list of girls. Not only had I exchanged information with Sunny Flare, Sour Sweet, and…ugh…Sugarcoat, I had received more numbers from Sunset Shimmer and her circle of friends. Granted, I hardly talked to any of them besides the occasional group message. At most, I've texted Sunset Shimmer a few times, but that was about it. I've yet to mention something to Sunny Flare or the others from Crystal Prep, and I couldn't help but get the feeling that Sunny Flare was going to end up reaching me to complain about it. Despite the acquired group of new friends, I still mostly stuck around Faith like I always did, and considering I was just so used to being with her, I guess it wasn't such a surprise.

"Nah. Not really." I pushed away my phone.

"You better behave yourself." She felt the need to tell me with a mixture of seriousness and jest. "Just because Sunset Shimmer introduced you to a whole bunch of cute girls, that doesn't mean you can get your flirt on."

"Are you kidding?" I seriously debated if any part of her suggestion held any water. "You know that's like the last thing on my mind right now."

Faith shrugged. "Just saying. Especially since you haven't been all gooey with Twilight lately."

It was true that I hadn't been making such a big deal about Twilight after the Friendship Games, but that didn't mean that I still didn't have feelings for her. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I began to question them. I didn't like the fact that I was questioning the feelings I've practically had since I met her, so most of the time, I just ignored it all together. Maybe that was why it seemed that way to Faith.

At either point, she seemed to grow unusually quiet after her last remark. She turned her head towards the window and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. I didn't realize it at first, but it was almost like she was holding up a mirror. For once, I was able to understand how I looked at times when I just spaced out like she seemed to be doing. However, the weirdest part was that she somehow captured my gaze. I continued observing her, paying particular attention to her face. I couldn't figure out why, but I could only assume that it was because this side of her was somewhat rare. I was expecting her to find me looking at her and slightly freak out, but she didn't. She just kept looking out the window.

"Sometimes I wonder about you…" Those words parted from her lips.

This tugged at my heartstring, and I couldn't tell if she meant that in a good or bad way. Before I could bother asking her about it, something clanked between us in the middle of the table. "Here you go! Enjoy the treat, you two lovebirds!"

"Ugh…" I sunk down into my seat as she skated away. However, I was particularly surprised when Faith didn't react like I expected her to. "Hey. You okay?" I finally asked.

"Hm?" She lifted up her head and turned to me as if she had literally been deaf for a few minutes.

"You got quiet all of a sudden." I mentioned.

"Oh, sorry." She apologized, lifting up a questionable smile before she turned and noticed the ice cream that Pinkie Pie had just dropped off. "Oh, is that our order? Looks amazing!" She picked up the included spoon and buried it underneath the strawberry-flavored section of her ice cream. Afterwards, she lifted up the spoon, tearing away a piece before sticking it in her mouth. "Mmm! You should try some of this! Here, let me try some of yours!"

I didn't object as she went on ahead and dug her spoon into the chocolate scoop that sat on my side. Instead, I continued observing her behavior for a little while longer. For some reason, it felt a little forced, but I wasn't sure if it was reasonable enough to worry about it. Anytime something bothered her, she was usually so open to telling me about it, so if she really _was_ in trouble, she'd tell me, right?

It wasn't until the vanilla scoop began melting over both of our scoops when I finally decided to pick up my own spoon and join Faith as she fed her sweet tooth. I didn't want to stretch the possibility that she'd finish it all on her own.

* * *

We ended up doing that picture thing Pinkie mentioned to us about and shared it for our discount. As I began pulling my wallet out to cover the costs, Faith called out to me and stopped me.

"I've got it." She surprised me and pulled out a small purse of her own. She slipped out a few bills and planted them on the table.

"Huh? What?" I was caught off guard for a moment. "Why? You don't have to."

"How many times have you treated me?" She asked with a soft yet glowing smile. "If that keeps up, you're _really_ going to spoil me. Besides, I'm practically the only one who gets an allowance. I'd feel bad if you kept doing things like this."

"I don't mind…" I dug my hands into my pockets and returned a somewhat guilty frown. "I mean…the guy is the one who usually pays, right? After all, you do more than enough when you share the stuff on your gaming account with me."

Faith blushed silently for a moment as she averted her eyes away. "Let me do this, pretty please? It's not that much in the first place."

"Mm." I softly groaned, finding the look on her face irresistible to say no to. I took a quick glance around to see if anyone else was staring at us and finally returned a nod with a sigh. "Alright."

Even though Faith obviously wanted to pay, I still felt a little guilty and ashamed. It was almost like I was embarrassed to be a guy, but I guess it was just the way I was raised. It wasn't the _first_ time she technically payed for something for us, but this time was different. I didn't know how to explain it, but _I_ had invited _her_ out, yet she was the one paying in the end. Something about that didn't click right with me, but she thought otherwise.

Faith surprised me yet again when she wanted to walk to her house together instead of me just dropping her off on my bike. So, when I stationed my bike back at home, that's when we seemed to slowly head our way towards the end of the road across a setting sun.

Taking a short glance at her, I noticed her keep her head down as she stretched her hands backwards. Her walking steps seemed rather eccentric. It was almost as if she was hopping yet walking at the same time. Nevertheless, it wasn't anything uncommon coming from her. Moreover, I was interested in her slightly strange behavior. It wasn't like anything she did today was completely out of the ordinary, but the pattern of her actions was kind of off, so to speak. I wanted to know what was on her mind, but as I reminded myself of before, she'd usually tell me anything that bothered her if I didn't already know about it.

Was I looking too much into this? As far as I'm concerned, there was nothing nowhere near that would cause her to be so distressed. After all, just like she told me back at the diner, things have been going pretty great, especially since the mess with the video of her online had been sorted out. So why did she seem so conflicted?

"So, is it decided then?" She suddenly asked, catching me off my guard.

"Huh?" I somewhat merged a short gasp with my response.

"The school camping trip. Are you going?"

I scratched my head and turned away for a short moment. "I thought I already told you. Because of my parents, I'm pretty much going for sure." I chuckled lightly at her apparent clumsiness. "It's only for a week. I guess it won't be that bad. I just won't know what to expect."

She stopped at the front of her house and turned towards me. After, she lit up a beam on her face. "Then, it's settled. We'll make this a trip of our very own." She clenched a fist in front of her chest, but she kept her gaze directly on me.

With the way she worded that, I could only assume she meant that it'd be another "adventure" for us. It was just some school camping trip for me, but Faith always liked to look at the bright side of things, even if that meant working her imagination into the process.

"Yeah. Sure." I answered rather lightly as I returned a smile of my own towards her.

"You'll stay over the night before the morning of the trip, right?" She asked as she crossed her arms and tilted her head ever so slightly in my direction.

"Huh? Stay over?" I asked, the idea just crossing my mind as soon as she mentioned it.

"Yeah." She confirmed with a hefty nod. "I don't trust you to get up so early on your own for the trip, you know? We're going to have to get up even earlier than we did for school. I can't imagine how much trouble you'd get with your parents if they found out that you missed the bus for the trip."

Coming from the girl who is known to forget to charge her phone the night before school? I thought to myself while avoiding her gaze.

"Uh, sure." I answered, finding no issue with that suggestion. I believed it would mutually benefit the both of us either way. She could wake me up, and I can make sure her klutziness doesn't keep her from forgetting anything important. "I'll crash the night before then."

For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and giggled jubilantly. I wasn't sure if I had never noticed it before, but the face she had on at that exact moment was incredibly cute. I found myself being taken aback by the sight of it, and I had to quickly turn my head away so she wouldn't notice the vulnerable expression on my face.

"Just you wait, Chase." She startled me when she pointed a sharp finger straight at me. "Just put your faith in me, and this'll be your favorite camping trip yet!"


	2. Camp Everfree

I yawned loudly after having been shoved awake, and it didn't help that it was still clearly dark outside her windows. Despite how I desperately fought against my sleep, I could see Faith rummaging around me, making sure she had everything she needed.

"Do you think I'll be able to take my laptop or something?" She asked as she crouched over the bag she had packed the night before. "I wasn't sure if it'd be allowed, so I didn't pack it. But, now I'm really wondering if I should take it or not."

Glancing over at her teary-eyed, I answered her question as clearly as I could. "I can't tell you if it's allowed or not, but technically we _are_ going to be camping, right? I think we're fine with just our phones."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." She stood back up after zipping her bag shut. "It's only a week anyway, and I'm _totes_ going to have you try out every activity with me, so there probably wouldn't be much time to be on my laptop anyway." She turned over to me to find me still on her bed. "Come on. Get up. We've gotta get going soon. You already brought your toothbrush and stuff, right? You can use my bathroom to brush your teeth. Come on!" She began to shove me out of bed now, and I had no choice but to oblige.

"I don't get how you're so energetic this early in the morning." I told her as I lazily moved and brushed my hand through the back of my hair. "I _barely_ have any energy even when I sleep in."

"It helps when you have something to look forward to." She briefly answered with a small smile before she continued to push me towards her bathroom. "Let's go! Let's go!"

As I had been commanded, I borrowed her bathroom to brush my teeth and do other things like fix and straighten out my hair, but it wasn't long before she was knocking on the door in order to speed up my progress. I was right about done when she knocked, so I only sighed lightly before I opened the door and met her outside.

I watched her continue to fumble about and repeat to herself as she looked through her bags to double-check she had everything she needed. "Toiletries? Check. A week's worth of clothes? Check. Mmm." She suddenly paused and looked over at me. "Think we'll need swimsuits?" She asked.

"I don't think it'd be a bad idea to bring a set along." I told her. I had already packed my own, just in case. "I don't know what the activities will be, but I have a feeling there'll be a lake or something somewhere."

"Okay. Got it." She searched through her drawers and pulled out a familiar top portion of her swimsuit.

She was just about to stuff it in her bag before I stopped her. "Hey, uh…"

"Huh?" She looked at me with a curious yet innocent expression.

"That's…the one that, you know…" I scratched my head and hoped that she'd get the hint before I'd need to tell her directly.

She didn't seem to understand at first until she took a closer look at what she had been holding. "Oh!" She softly yelped and quickly stuffed it back in her dresser and anxiously continued searching as she talked to herself with a flushed face. "…why do I even still have that?" She spent several seconds rummaging through different clothes before pulling out a different set of swimwear. "Thanks for telling me." She said as she bent down to tend to her bag. "After what happened, I made sure to buy a new swimsuit, but I'm in such a rush that I almost didn't even notice."

"Why _are_ you in a rush?" I felt the need to ask. "You _did_ finish packing all your stuff last night, right?"

"I did, but I just want to make sure that I'm not forgetting anything. There was some stuff that I didn't put in my bag because I wasn't sure if I would be needing it. I thought I'd have enough time to do that today, but maybe it would've been better if I just had it all settled from the very beginning."

"You're good on time, Faith." I reminded her, checking the time on my phone.

"Am I?" She stood up and turned to me for a moment before she raised a fist to her mouth and began giggling to herself. "Look at me. I was the one who promised that I'd make sure you wouldn't miss the bus, yet I'm the one who's freaking out about the time."

"That just means you really care about seeing this through." I responded in hopes to provide her some relief. "If you ask me, you've got everything you need, or at the very least, the essentials. We're only going to be there a week, and I'd assume that the activities they have there will take up most of our time."

"Hm. I guess you're right." She thought to herself for a few seconds before she shook her head and bent down to look at the contents of her bag. "In that case, I think I pretty much have everything. Yeah, okay." She zipped up her bag and lifted it up with both of her hands. "Quick. Anything else I might be missing last second?"

"I saw you pack in everything I could think of, so nope." I said.

"Alright." She returned a firm nod and turned over to her doorway. "Let's go see if my mom waiting for us downstairs."

"Sounds good." I answered as I followed her out of her room with my own things. As I watched her fairly large bag sway side-to-side as she began stepping down the stairs, I reached a cautious hand out to her. "Hey, you want me to carry that?"

"I-I'm fine." She responded with a seemingly straining voice. "You've got your own bag to deal with."

"I don't really have much stuff, to begin with." I continued to suggest otherwise as we began walking down the steps. At this rate, it probably wouldn't even matter if she gave me her bag since we just needed to throw them into the back of her mom's car, who, by the way, was kind enough to take us so early in the morning.

"Like I said," She replied as she slightly turned her head towards me, "You spoil me too much. I need to do things myself time to time."

As soon as she said that, her body jerked forward as if she messed a step descending the stairs. I quickly reached my right hand out and held her back. Her body slightly jolted and soon froze for a second. It wasn't until she was no longer at risk of tripping over anymore when I realized my hand had been grabbing the area between her neck and shoulder.

I couldn't figure out why, but things began turning awkward on my end at least. If this was a few months back, I was sure that this wouldn't have been a big deal, but for some reason, it was now. I didn't know how Faith had felt about my rather unintentional intimate gesture, but I decided to completely blow out any awkward gust around us and force myself to move on with something to change the mood.

"You okay?" I asked foremost.

"Y-Yeah, thanks." She responded without looking back before continuing to carefully make her way down the last few remaining steps.

I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed quietly as I followed her. However, I quickly withdrew my hand when I realized it had been the same one I had touched her with.

Stop acting like a freaking kid, Chase. Girls exist. They're a thing. Get over it.

"Good morning!" We heard a cheery greeting come from the kitchen. It was effective in breaking any possible ice between Faith and me.

"Morning, mom." Faith extended a smile as we entered the kitchen.

As usual, we found her mother seeming to prepare a meal for us, but it didn't appear to be one that we'd sit down at the table for.

"I wasn't sure if you were comfortable enough to spend some time eating here, so I decided to make some breakfast sandwiches for you two on the go." She finished placing away some ingredients in the fridge and proceeded to wash and dry her hands. "Going away to camp for an entire week? I'm sure going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too, mom." Faith answered with an appreciative grin. "But, we'll be back before you know it. Although, hearing me say that, it makes me feel a little sad too. Afterward, do you think we can plan a trip to the beach house?"

"We haven't been there this month, so I don't see why not. If it means I get to make up for the lost time while you're away at camp, then I'll be looking forward to it." With a bright smile on her face, she walked over to her daughter and lightly patted her on the head.

To her satisfaction, Faith's body lightly rotated and swayed as she hummed happily with a blush scrawled over her face.

In the meantime, I had witnessed the entire scene. This kind of occurrence was common enough that I didn't feel embarrassed watching it play out, but to this day, I was still unsure of what to do when mother-daughter bonding sessions popped up like this.

I suppose her mother noticed my slight discomfort, so she began inching towards me with a gesturing hand. "What is it, Chase? Want me to pat you on the head too?"

"No, no." I shook both my head and hands as I slowly backed away with a small yet noticeable flushed face. It was hard to tell whether she was joking, serious, or both. "I'm good. Thanks."

"We better get going then." She turned around to grab the breakfast sandwiches she had made and handed them over to us. "You said you needed me to take you to Canterlot High, right? That's where the buses are going to be to take you to that camp?" She confirmed with Faith.

"Yuppies." Faith began to happily unwrap her sandwich and take bites out of it. "I was freaking out a bit about the time earlier, but you don't need to rush. We should still have time to spare by the time we get there."

"I'll go get the car ready then." She answered as she began walking past us. We could hear keys jingle as the front door opened and closed shortly after.

Faith turned to the floor where she had placed her bag and began to reach out with her right hand, but then she froze in motion. She turned her head to her sandwich and then back to her bag. It appeared she had found herself in a predicament, and it was fairly clear why.

"Let me go ahead and get that for you." Keeping the bag hastened by my left shoulder steady, I reached over and picked up her luggage. It was a little heavy but definitely nothing I couldn't handle, especially since all I had to do was take it out to the car that was right outside.

"Oh, no!" I could hear her say with an occupied mouth. "You don't—!" She paused for a second in order to swallow whatever she had been eating and continued to try to stop me from helping out. "I can get it! Let me, um, just finish this really quick."

"It's alright." I faced her, prepared to drop off all of our things in the car before she could shove the rest of the sandwich down her throat. "Don't rush or you'll choke. I'll go ahead and get these in the car."

"Mmm…" She groaned shortly, and I headed outside before she had any chance to stop me.

Each of us spared just a few minutes to make sure we weren't forgetting anything. When we were finally ready to hit the road, Faith jumped onto the seat next to me and offered me something familiar.

"Here."

Realizing it was the breakfast sandwich her mom made me, I immediately accepted it. "Oh, thanks!" I expressed gratefully. I had nearly left it behind in exchange for helping Faith with her bag. Faith smiled softly and pulled the seatbelt over to buckle herself in.

* * *

Compared to normally biking my way over to Canterlot High, it was actually a pretty short car ride. In fact, I was so used to the time it took us to get there that the length now felt way too short to be real. Despite that, Faith and I were pulling our things out of the car in the next moment. Her mom stepped out of the driver's seat and joined us for what looked like a temporary goodbye.

"It's going to be a little strange not seeing the both of you at home at the end of the day." She said with her hands on her hips. "I hope you don't decide to end up living at the camp."

"Psh. As if. Whatever food they have there could never be able to live up to your master chef skills." Faith joked along.

A grin rose on her mother's face before she was pulled in for a warm embrace. "You two have a great time at camp, alright? I'll be thinking of you every day."

I noticed Faith roll her gaze towards me for a moment as her cheeks reddened up after the gesture. "We're not going that far, mom. Still, I'll be thinking of you too." She said softly.

Just like earlier this morning, I stood there watching and tried to play it off without being awkward about it. In other words, I felt like I needed to turn my head away and look in the other direction every now and then without making it look like I was intentionally trying to keep myself from witnessing the vulnerable state of the two.

"Come on, Chase. You too." I heard, turning my head back to the sight.

Faith was no longer trapped in her mother's arms. Instead, they were wide open, and it seemed she was expecting me to return the favor. I didn't know how to feel about the situation. It wasn't the first time she had expressed a motherly gesture towards me, but it still felt a little weird. I didn't know if I felt like I'd be betraying my own mother if I accepted it, but I definitely couldn't leave her hanging. Not after the kind of hospitality she's given me from the time I've known her.

"Yeah, okay…" I scratched my cheek a bit before walking within arm's length of her.

Before I could even prepare myself, she wrapped her arms around my back and gave me a tight and firm squeeze. From what I could tell, the kind of hug I had gotten seemed to be a bit different from what I had seen with Faith. It's hard to put into words, but it looked like she had placed more "care" with embracing her daughter. Not to say that she didn't care about me, but I suppose it was just that special "mother and daughter" relationship that you could never replicate with someone else that isn't actually your child. Once she released me, she glanced at the both of us silently for a moment before her warm smile slightly stretched.

"Have fun, you two, okay?"

Faith nodded fervently. "We will. And then we'll take a trip with just the three of us when we come back!"

Her mother returned a nod as well and began waving us goodbye as she stepped into her car. "Keep me updated."

It wasn't long before the door to her vehicle closed, and we ended up watching her drive off. Afterward, each of our eyes had met before Faith closed hers and returned a warm smile my way.

* * *

"The bus should be right over here." Faith guided me a short distance around the school until we noticed an ordinary yellow school bus stationed at the empty parking lot.

"Huh." I stopped and observed the school bus for a short moment. "That's weird."

"What?" Faith stopped as well and faced me.

"Isn't Camp Everfree somewhere out of the area in the woods?" I asked. "It's not that far away, but I guess I just find it ironic that we're taking a regular school bus instead of a charter bus like Crystal Prep would for a few-minute drive."

"What? You miss Crystal Prep already?" Faith smirked and teased.

"Are you kidding? In a way, I feel a lot more relieved riding in a regular old school bus than some fancy air-conditioned one. It sort of feels like I'm more at home?"

"Well, it _does_ fit more with the camping lifestyle." She answered before bumping me with her hip. "Come on. We don't want it to leave without us."

There were some students there by the time we caught up, but judging by the small amount, it seemed like we were still pretty early. The doors to the lower compartment of the bus were open, and a few bags had already been stowed away. Faith and I carefully pushed in our luggage before we turned around and got a better look at the area without our baggage dragging us down.

It was no longer totally dark, but day was actually starting to break in on the horizon. It was a nice and cozy sight, but the view wasn't as great as it was back at Faith's "vacation home".

"You're the new students attending Canterlot High, am I right?" We heard a composed voice that was metaphorically coated with a soothing honey speak to us. Our new principal had been standing a few feet away at our left side, and in one hand, she had a clipboard that was momentarily being held like a binder. In the other, she rested a hand on her hip. She was wearing what looked like some scoutmaster's uniform. I supposed it fit her, considering the rest of us were all wearing a Camp Everfree shirt. Studying her a bit, she began to heavily remind me of Dean Cadence back from Crystal Prep. I could only wonder how she was doing lately.

"That's correct, ma'am." Faith answered in a bright-eyed manner. The way she responded made me wonder if she learned a page or two from my book with Principal Cinch.

"Principal…Celestia? Right?" I asked, lightly squeezing my eyes from the slight fear of getting her name wrong and somehow offending her.

"That is correct." Principal Celestia said. "I don't expect the two of you to become familiar with the name right away, but as soon as classes start, I'm sure it'll come to you naturally." She paused and looked at the small groups of students that were surely growing larger by the minute. "I'm glad you two were able to come. It looks like you transferred just in time to be attending this trip with us. Honestly, I think this trip will be a good first impression of what you can expect at Canterlot High School."

I couldn't help but avert my gaze and mutter internally to myself.

I'm pretty sure we already had our first impression at the Friendship Games…

"Have you seen Twilight around?" Faith asked.

"Not yet." She shook her head in response and rubbed her chin carefully as she took a short glance around. "Although, I'm sure she's on her way. I haven't seen Sunset Shimmer and the rest of her friends either, so I'm assuming they're together." She faced back towards us and raised a hand to the bus. "If you'd like, you can take a seat inside the bus already. If not, you can stay outside and wait for them."

"Principal Celestia, could you come over here for a moment?" We heard a call behind her.

"Please, excuse me." Principal Celestia momentarily lifted her index finger before stepping away.

"So, what do you wanna do?" Faith questioned, looking towards me for an answer. "Want to pick out a seat already, or do you want to wait for you-know-who?" She flashed her eyebrows at me as a smirk stretched out on her face.

Ignoring the tempting offer to overreact, I prepared to ignore her button-pushing as subtly as I could with a calm answer. "I guess we could just go inside—"

"You there! Help me, will you, darling?"

Before I could find out who seemingly called out to me, a fairly heavy bag had been planted onto my hands. Not expecting the sudden weight, I nearly fell over in trying to compensate, but I managed to raise my arms in time to keep myself from falling flat on my face. When I was able to get a look at the person responsible, she had already been walking away at a fast pace. I had loads of questions bubbling in my mind, but there was only one that I had enough time to ask.

"What am I supposed to do with this?!"

Truth be told, I just wanted to be rid of the bag as soon as possible.

She turned around and answered me. "What else do you do with the luggage, darling? Place it into the bus! Oh, but do be careful! I don't want anything inside to be broken. When you're done, hurry on back and help me bring in the rest of my things, please?"

She didn't wait to hear my answer. Instead, it seemed she had expected me to accept her request because she just kept walking on afterward.

"Rarity has a _lot_ of bags." Another voice accompanied us.

It was Sunset Shimmer.

"And what do I look like to her? Her pack mule?" I questioned her a bit angrily.

"Think of it this way. She trusts you enough to take care of her things. You two are good friends already." Sunset Shimmer crossed her arms and raised her head in poise.

I couldn't tell whether she was messing around or not, but with a heavy sigh, I decided to follow Rarity's request and _carefully_ place her things inside the empty space underneath the bus. "It's not like I've really talked with her much."

"We're a little different from Crystal Prep students." Sunset Shimmer reminded. "If you're going to be going to CHS from now on, you _might_ want to get used it." She concluded with a wink.

Before I could respond to that, I suddenly felt my arm being jerked back with something wrapped around my wrist, pulling me forcefully. "Don't you know it's rude to keep a lady waiting? Come on!"

"W-Wait!" I struggled to bring things to a halt so I could get a good grip on what was currently going on.

"I'll keep Faith company!" Sunset Shimmer waved towards me as her figure slowly grew smaller.

When I was finally brought to the trunk of a vehicle, I was allowed a brief moment to catch a breath. By my side, I found Rarity bent over as she rummaged through the trunk and pulled on the handles of other pieces of luggage.

"You know, a choice of whether to help or not would have been nice." I returned a frank complaint before I leaned over and got a better look at what was inside the trunk. Remembering what Sunset Shimmer had told me, I began to address that matter with Rarity. "What's with all these? Are these all of the girls' bags?"

" _Heavens no._ They're all mine."

The way she answered genuinely shocked me. I knew girls were known to bring along more things because of makeup and stuff, but this was _way_ too much! And she acted like this was completely normal to her!

"Are you kidding me?! Why are you bringing all this to a one-week trip?!" I reacted before she held out a couple more bags towards me.

"Oh-ho-ho." She chuckled. "You have much to learn about moi. When it comes to fashion, you can never be too careful." She jiggled her luggage in front of me and continued gazing at me with an innocent smile until I reluctantly held out my hands and carried them for her.

Seriously? I bet you won't even go through more than two bags tops. I'm so glad Faith isn't like this.

Rarity must have understood a smidge of my thoughts because she tacked on a statement of reassurance. "There's no need to give me that pouty look on your face. I'm not going to let you move these bags on your own." She removed another bag and held it out in front of me. "See?"

I found the small size of the _one_ bag she was holding up hardly reassuring.

"Uh-huh…" I answered, my eyelids lowered halfway from a lack of amusement.

I continued walking back and forth to retrieve her luggage and place it in the storage compartment on the bus. Every now and then, I'd get a glance at Faith and notice her return an apologetic look towards me. She didn't have any fault with me carrying Rarity's things, but I suppose she was sorry for being unable to do anything with Sunset Shimmer keeping her busy.

After four or five trips here and back, along with my arms working overtime to carry as much as I possibly could so I could end this charade of being some kind of bellhop to her, I was finally allowed to wipe the sweat off my forehead as I placed the last of her luggage inside the bus.

"There. We're done now, right?"

Rarity firmly nodded her head. "I _do_ appreciate the help."

It's not like you gave me a choice…

"Your assistance won't go unrewarded." She added. "I'll make something spiffy for you to wear."

Great. Can't wait.

"You _just_ finished getting your things on the bus, Rarity? It's almost time to leave!" A girl with rainbow-colored hair joined us, noticing the huge amount of similar-designed luggage right by each other.

"You can't rush beauty, Rainbow Dash." Rarity responded with another piece of her "wisdom".

"I'd like to see that 'beauty' keep the bus from moving. Come on!" She waved her hand over as she began stepping onto the bus.

Seeing as Rarity was apparently the last one to have her things placed in, I closed the remaining opened compartment doors.

"Shall we?" Rarity advised to me before she went on ahead and began boarding the bus.

I felt a hand pat my shoulder a couple of times before Sunset Shimmer walked past me and headed for the bus as well. Faith now reconvened with me and stayed by my side with her arms crossed behind her back. From what I could see, her face looked a little different for some reason. I wasn't sure if it was the lighting or something, but she looked a little redder than usual.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." She immediately whipped out a beaming grin. "Let's hurry and get on the bus!"

I couldn't argue with her push, so I followed after her as she walked hurriedly to the door of the bus.

Thanks to Rarity heavy-duty request, the bus was already practically filled by the time we finally got on. The only empty seats left were the ones at the back of the bus behind Sunset Shimmer and the rest of our new friends. I suppose it wasn't all bad, but it was still a little annoying to know that we came here early and ended up losing out on our choice of seats in the end. I slumped my shoulders as I walked behind Faith over to the only place we could sit.

"Hey, Chase." I heard as I walked on by.

"Hey…" I unenthusiastically returned until I realized whom I had been speaking to. "Uh! Hey!" I perked up after noticing her push up her glasses.

I could only imagine she was a bit startled and surprised by my reaction because she shortly waved afterward with a small smile. Spike, her dog, only quietly switched glances between the two of us. Before I could make anything worse, I continued walking to the back. I was definitely tempted to keep a conversation going, but the worst part about that was we were in the middle of a bus that was ready to leave. I wouldn't be able to keep a conversation unless I sat down to talk to her. Even if Spike was willing to move out of the way for me to sit, what was I going to say after that? Heavily sighing to myself, I reached the end where Faith was waiting for me and sat by her.

"You'll get a bunch of chances to talk to her." Faith seemed to notice the expression on my face and reassured me.

The last time Twilight was around like this was during the Friendship Games, and at that time, all she ever really cared about was her research and stuff. Now that Twilight was yearning to learn about "friendship", I realized that Faith's words were not longer wishful thinking.

"Yeah, you're right." I agreed.

Faith slightly tilted her head towards me with a smile that was calmer than the one she gave me right before we entered the bus. Next, she dug into her pockets and pulled out her handy phone. After attaching a wire to it, she held up an earbud to me. In addition, she raised her eyebrows as the look of her alluring eyes invited me to accept her silent offer.

Feeling the sour mood I had just a few minutes ago fade away, I carefully grabbed the earbud with my fingers and lifted it up towards my right ear. From there on, we quietly listened to some music as we waited for the wheels on the bus to finally go round and round.

* * *

We listened to some music for some time, but I had to admit that the chatter throughout the bus was a disturbance, at least for me. In this case, it would have been beneficial if we had a separate set of earbuds to block out any outside noise as much as possible.

I turned to Faith to see what she thought of the situation, but, instead, I found that her head had been slowly rocking forward. Her eyes twitched softly every now and then, but they remained closed for the most part.

"You sleepy?" I asked.

"Oh?" She lightly shook her head and opened her eyes back up. "Y-Yeah. Now that we're safely on the bus, any of the energy I had just disappeared. I guess I was really more tired than I thought, and now that I'm not worrying about making it to the bus, it's finally showing."

"You can get some sleep, you know." I assured. "It'll be a while before we get there."

"About that..." Faith slowly averted her eyes as a red glow began to surface across her cheeks. "You mind if I borrow your shoulder?"

I nearly froze after having been caught off guard by that request. It especially didn't help that there were so many other students around us, and if any of them saw us like that, they'd surely get the wrong idea. Nevertheless, I couldn't deny her because that would obviously be a jerk move.

I made a subtle glance around with my eyes and realized that we _were_ at the back. No one would really see unless they turned around. Despite the possibility of any unwanted attention, I was probably overthinking things way too much.

She's just using my shoulder for support. So, what?

"Uh, sure." I finally said.

She remained still for a moment, appearing if she was having second thoughts. However, she began slowly scooting closer before leaning against me. I looked away as if I was some patient about to get a shot and tried to busy my mind with something else. Just as I thought that things couldn't become more difficult, I suddenly felt the urge to shift the position my body was in when Faith already settled her head down.

Just settle back and relax, Chase. You're already used to things like this. Just quit worrying about everybody else and soon enough it'll all—

" _Stop!_ " I heard, causing my body to jerk from the scare.

In turn, Faith's head was lifted up and torn from my shoulder.

Both of us quickly looked at the area in front of us to find some kind of commotion going on with Twilight.

"Twilight, wake up!" Spike patted her.

"We _can't_ stop, silly! We're not there yet!" Pinkie Pie stood up from her seat next to Sunset Shimmer and spoke to Twilight.

"Hey, are you okay?" Sunset Shimmer asked as she leaned in and hung her arm over the seat Twilight was in.

"Heh. I'm fine." Twilight answered, sounding as if she was short out of breath.

"We are gonna have so much fun!" Pinkie jumped in a nonchalant yet excited manner. "We're gonna roast marshmallows and eat marshmallows and sleep on marshmallow pillows!"

"Yeah, probably not gonna do that." Rainbow Dash was heard saying back beyond them.

"Maybe _you're_ not." Pinkie Pie held up a bag of marshmallows and squeezed them closely to her face, reminding me of what had happened with Faith and me.

Fortunately, before we could possibly get caught in an awkward moment, our school officials at the front began making an announcement towards all the students currently on the bus.

"Attention, students, we're almost there." Principal Celestia informed us. "But before we arrive, we just wanted to say how proud we are of you for raising enough money to go on this class field trip."

Whoa. They had to raise money to go on this trip? Now, I feel bad for just jumping in all of a sudden…

"When we were your age, we made some of our favorite memories in these woods, and we're sure you will, too." Vice Principal Luna added.

"Now who's excited for Camp Everfree?!" Principal Celestia asked.

Everybody on the bus immediately cheered besides Faith and me. In fact, I began hearing her speak to me once the cheering died down.

"Well, I guess I won't be getting any sleep." She mentioned with a blithe kind of look on her face. She looked troubled that her attempt at sleep had been disturbed, but she was accepting of it despite the circumstances.

"You sure?" I asked.

"You heard the principal. I guess I'll just wait until we get moved in and stuff." Faith then turned her head towards the window and began observing the scenery outside. As for me, I only really slightly slumped against my seat and silently waited for the bus to arrive at some point or another.

Every now and then I'd turn my head towards the window to get a peak of the slow transition from urban life to the "great outdoors". Buildings became more and more scattered about until all there was to be seen was fields of green. It was only a matter of time before we were met with a wall of pine trees. Eventually, that was all we could see around the bus.

A soft gasp sounded beside me, and I could see Faith angling her head around by the window. Afterward, she placed her hands on top of the seat in front of her and straightened her figure off the seat. "I think we're here!" I remained in my seat as she clearly gawked out in excitement, and this seemed to bother her in return. She turned towards me and hooked her arm around mine, forcing me to stand with her. "Look! Doesn't it look amazing?!"

"Sure." I responded calmly and began sitting back down while pulling my arm back.

Despite my lack of excitement, she nearly shoved me as she tried to take a look at the windows on the left side of the bus. By shove, I mean she leaned in a little too close and practically pressed herself against me since I was right in her way. From what I could tell, she was too busy locking eyes onto whatever was outside, and I was starting to think that she didn't even know how dangerously close she was. In fact, she was pretty much obscuring my view of anything else.

It wasn't until she must have felt me in her way where she bothered to look down to find me uncomfortably turning my head away and crossing my arms. Soon enough, she quickly pulled away and sat back in her seat with her arms between her legs. A spark within her cheeks began to ignite a fire that seared all throughout her face. I felt a little guilty for somewhat being the one responsible for ending her short-lived excitement, but in reality, there was nothing I could really do.

Because we sat at the very back, we were the very last ones to get off the bus. I didn't really mind, but it wasn't until I started setting foot outside where I found trouble nearly headfirst.

"Has anyone seen Chase? Is he still on the bus?"

I noticed Rarity's head poking around as she stood in front of the open compartment underneath the bus. My eyes shot open, and I quickly grabbed Faith's wrist and forcefully pulled her around to the other side of the bus before Rarity could find me by the door.

"O-Ow! What was that for?!" Faith exclaimed.

"Sorry…" I released my grip on her, allowing her to retract her hand and slowly massage her wrist. Meanwhile, I had been poking my head out in an attempt to get a good look at what Rarity was doing.

"What are you doing…?" Faith positioned herself near me and tried to get a view of what I had been gawking at. I continued observing Rarity and didn't notice her silence until she spoke once more. "…hold on… Are you looking at Twilight?! Why are you doing it in such a creepy way?"

"Shh!" I placed a finger to my lips and shushed her. "No, I'm not looking at Twilight. I'm watching Rarity."

"Rarity?!" Her voice nearly raised in volume. "W-What? You have a thing for her now?"

"No!" I felt my voice unintentionally begin to raise as well. "I just don't want her to see me. Remember how she had me carry her stuff to the bus? I bet she's looking around for me so I can take her bags out."

"But our bags are in the bus too. How are we supposed to get them if we're hiding back here?" She asked a good question.

"We'll just have to wait for her to leave. I don't know when that'll be, but she has to go _sometime_ , right? Worst case scenario, you can go out and get our bags. If she asks you anything, don't mention that I'm hiding from her."

Faith was rather silent for a decent amount of time. "…okay…but she's going to have to see you sometime. You can't just hide from her during camp the entire time."

"I know. She'll get someone else to help her with her things or actually do the work herself. I don't have to hide then. I just hope she doesn't bother me with more stuff to do."

"You don't think it'd just be easier to help her with her things now? Do you really have to make things so complicated?" She placed a hand on her cocked hip. Taking a glance at her figure, I almost began to believe that she thought I felt the same way when it came to helping her with things.

I sighed lightly and faced my body towards her. "Look. I get what you're saying, but I just don't want to be assigned as 'pack mule' now that we know each other. I'm all to helping others, but not if it becomes a regular and expected thing. Get me?"

She lightly pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows. Nevertheless, she nodded slightly. "I guess.."

A screeching sound suddenly pierced our ears. Just before our ears could recover, we heard a voice come out from what sounded like a fairly old intercom. "Hey, everyone! If you could start heading to the courtyard, that would be rad! It's time to start the best week of camp ever!"

I took another look around the bus and noticed everyone leaving, including Rarity.

"Hey, this is our chance! Let's go!" I immediately began jogging over to the other side and began searching through the storage compartment. Since we had pretty much been the last ones off, it was easy to find our luggage and pull it out. Once Faith and I had our stuff, we headed off in the direction the others went.

* * *

We reconvened with everyone else in front of the gazebo just in time to see a chipper-looking woman with a microphone step forth onto the gazebo. By her side was a guy who looked to be around her age. I could only assume that they either worked in the camp time to time or possibly even owned it.

"Hi, everyone!" The woman greeted. "Welcome to Camp Everfree! I'm Gloriosa Daisy, your camp director! Think of me as your friendly camp and nature guide. And this is my brother, Timber Spruce!"

Timber grabbed a hold of the microphone next. "Think of me as that awesome guy..." He paused for a short moment to juggle the microphone a bit. "…who should always be invited to fun things."

Once the microphone was returned to Gloriosa, she resumed her previous speech. "We aim to please, so before we hand out our tent assignments, we'd like to hear from all of you. You're free to do whatever you like here."

"Uh, except hike near the rock quarry. That's off-limits." Timber oddly mentioned a bit suddenly.

Gloriosa looked like she was surprised at the mention herself, but she was able to recuperate nicely. "Y-Yes, but otherwise, your options are wide open. So what activities will make this the very best week of your lives ever?"

As soon as she held the microphone out towards the audience in front her, a brash voice suddenly yelled out.

"Ooh! Rock climbing!"

In front of us, we could see Rainbow Dash stretching her arm out as widely as she could and waving frantically as if there was an emergency.

"Done!" Gloriosa responded.

"Archery!" Rainbow continued excitedly.

"Of course!" Gloriosa obliged.

"Tetherball!"

"Naturally!"

It looked like this could have gone on for forever, but Sunset Shimmer grabbed her wrist and pulled it down before she could go too far. I could imagine she was making a suggestion in giving other people a chance to voice their interests.

"To tell you the truth, I'm really down for anything!" Faith told me as she held her fists up in front of her mouth with determination. "I've always wanted to try rock climbing!"

"Me too, but I'm pretty sure it's way harder than it looks when you watch other people do it." I answered.

"Well, it doesn't matter as long as it's super fun. I totes can't wait to give everything at camp a try here!"

I couldn't help but raise a grin due to her optimistic expression. "Seeing you this excited is getting me a little hyped too. I guess it was a good thing that you're here with me."

"As if I'd be anywhere else!" She winked briefly as she playfully stuck her tongue out at me. However, a second after, she opened her eyes and placed her hands on her hips as she leaned in towards me with a noticeable scowl. "Wait. What do you mean you 'guess' it's a good thing I'm here?"

"Uh… Heh, heh." I defensively placed my hands in front of me as I slightly moved my head back with a cold sweat running down the side of my face. I could only stare back at her puffed face before an announcement from the gazebo grabbed our attention. It was a good thing too. We had been too busy talking with each other that we actually missed all the other requests from everyone in the group.

"I'll be taking requests the rest of the time you're here, so if there's anything you'd like to do, anything you need, just ask." Gloriosa stated.

It seemed we missed our chance to talk, so if Faith and I came up with anything we might want to do, it was a good thing that we'd be able to let her know later.

"What about the camp gift?" Our principal mentioned over at an old-fashioned wooden bench she sat informally on. "That was _my_ favorite Camp Everfree tradition."

"The camp gift! Of course!" Gloriosa recalled. Afterward, she seemed to weirdly exchange inaudible words with her brother, but it was only a brief moment before her voice returned to the microphone. "Every year, campers work together to create something useful. A gift for future campers. Working toward this common goal is key to forming the strong bonds that will last well beyond your time here at camp!" Once more, she pulled away from the microphone near her lips and pushed a few inaudible words through her teeth towards her brother. Her brother only returned a dirty look before she lifted the microphone back up. "This gazebo was a gift from last year's group. Oh, oh, oh, and the totem pole and the sundial were also made by campers!" She presented them as she spoke.

"The sundial was _our_ year's gift!" Principal Celestia proudly acknowledged.

On the other hand, our vice principal coughed oddly for some reason. "Even though 'some people' thought it was a little impractical since the sundial can't be used at night."

It was a similar sight in regards to Gloriosa and her own sibling. However, she was able to move on and divert attention from whatever 'that' really was. "You all seem like a-a really amazing group. So I'm certain you'll come up with something inspiring to leave behind."

After the occasional cheer from everyone else, Timber spoke up with the next few directions we'd be taking.

"Speaking of leaving things behind, now's the time when we give out tent assignments so you can leave your heavy bags behind."

"Uh, girls will be getting their assignments from Timber." Gloriosa instructed as she stepped off the gazebo. "Guys, you're with me."

"Oh, shoot!" I suddenly heard beside me.

"What?" I quickly turned to find Faith clasping her thumb and index finger in front of her mouth worriedly.

"I wasn't expecting that we'd be separating into different tents!"

"W-What'd you think?" I found her response a little embarrassing to hear. "This is a school trip."

"But I don't want to be assigned with someone I don't even know."

Tell me about it… I didn't even know any of the other guys here in our school.

"Well…" I took a look at the students in front of each of our respective camp counselors and found that they were drawing some kind of cards out of a bag. This _was_ a pickle indeed. "Maybe someone's willing to switch cards with us?"

"Then what's the point of drawing cards in the first place?" Faith asked.

"I-I don't know." I had certainly been stumped by Faith. "Let's just go and draw our cards out before we miss our chance. We'll figure out what to do from there."

"Okay…" She anxiously seemed to rub her arm. She appeared reluctant to temporarily separate in order to get our tenting assignments, but inevitabilitly she had no other choice.

For a few minutes, I had to stand behind a bunch of guys I didn't know whatsoever in order to draw my card. To be honest, it felt a little awkward. It wasn't exactly anything new, but knowing that I kind of just hopped onto the CHS bandwagon free of charge, I felt a little out of place.

Once it was finally my turn to stick my hand into the bag, I reached inside, but I actually didn't really feel anything at all at first. It wasn't until my fingers found the edge of something flat when I snapped my fingers shut like a pair of scissors and pulled it out. Being the last one, I guess it wasn't a surprise that I'd only feel one card. Taking a quick deep breath, I flipped the card in front of my face and took notice of the gem on it. It was a kind of pearly white and shiny gem stone.

"Huh? I got…?"

"Oh! You're in the Opal tent!" Gloriosa spotted the gemstone on my card and began to look around. "Let's see… Who else got Opal tent?"

The guys that were hanging around looked at each other, but it was clear that none of them had the matching card. After all, they had already been in pairs, so it seemed that they had already found their roommates.

I pulled up my card and took a second look at it.

Am I really going to be the odd guy out here? Maybe that means I'll have a tent all to myself? In that case, Faith and I could probably still room in together…

"Gloriosa?" I heard another voice join us. It was Timber. "Hey, uh, we have a girl with a card that no other girl has." He pointed a thumb behind him.

I leaned over to find a surprise right behind him.

It was Faith!

"Really? I have someone over here too." Gloriosa responded with a light amount of shock. She turned towards Faith and approached. "What gemstone did you get?"

"Uh…this one." She held up the card towards her.

I was baffled. It was the exact gem that had been on my card. Was this fate?

"Timber… Mind telling me how two of the same cards ended up in different bags?" Gloriosa asked her brother a little bitterly after having been trapped in a silent pause for a short moment at first.

"How am I supposed to know?!" He reacted defensively.

Gloriosa looked like she had more to say, but once she seemed to realize we had still been standing by the both of them, she pulled out the widest grin she could and approached us about the manner. "I'm so sorry for the confusion. I'll get this straightened out right away. I've got this!"

Once Faith caught on to what had been going on after glancing back and forth between all of us, she fervently shook her head. "N-No! There's no problem here!"

"Huh?!" Gloriosa and her brother responded in confusion simultaneously.

Faith eagerly skipped to my side and faced them. "Chase and I are like the bestest friends! We were actually wondering if we could room together in the same tent!"

Faith, you do realize what you're saying, right? This isn't like how it is back home!

I could only believe Gloriosa and Timber were caught off-guard by Faith's request. Reading their nearly blank expressions, I could only imagine that they had no clue on how to handle the situation. They exchanged a silent look with each other before they turned back to us.

"…are you sure about this?" Gloriosa asked.

"Totes!" Faith answered joyfully. "This isn't the first time we had to share a room together."

…Faith…

At this point, Gloriosa and Timber turned their back towards us and appeared to have a conversation of their own. We couldn't hear anything they were saying, leaving us to glance at each other until they finally turned back to us.

"Seeing as everyone else has their tent assignments, I suppose we can have you room together…" Gloriosa stated with the utmost uncertainty in her voice.

"…just let us know if there are any problems, okay? We just…"

It seemed there was a lot more they wanted to say, but for the sake of preserving the good-nature of the innocent look that was plastered over Faith's face, they kept themselves from saying anymore. "Never mind. Go ahead and get ready to put your things away. We've got a lot of stuff planned for everyone at Camp Everfree here."

Sensing the reluctance behind their walk, they began moving towards another part of the area while softly conversing with each other. Before I could wrap my head around what had just happened, Faith suddenly threw her arms around me in a cheerful manner.

"This is great, Chase! We'll be sharing a tent together!"

Realizing that there had still been students around us, I moved in to shush Faith as quickly as I could lest anyone get the wrong idea.

Thankfully, there was a loud blow of a whistle over at the front of the gazebo. "Okay, everyone, go get settled in." Gloriosa announced loudly. "We'll be meeting at the docks in fifteen minutes to go over some camp safety rules. Let me know if you need anything!"

"Come on." I suggested to Faith, hoping to erase the feeling of being in the spotlight as soon as possible. "Let's, uh, go get settled in."

As soon as I was free from her grasp, I immediately slung the straps of my hefty bag over my shoulder and found myself walking rather quickly in the direction other students were heading towards. Once we came across a cul-de-sac of tents, I scanned my eyes over the various pieces of shelter for a moment, taking the gemstones depicted in front of the tents into account.

"Hey, I think this one's ours." Faith faced towards a particular tent as she held up the card she previous acquired from the bag.

I double checked the image on my card before taking note that no one else had really been hanging around the same tent.

"I don't see anyone around it." I told her before walking her towards the open flaps.

Once inside, I immediately noticed the décor that laid before us. In fact, I was a little surprised by the kind of furniture that was already set up and ready to be used. I almost thought we'd be sleeping in sleeping bags for once, but it turned out we had our own beds. The best way to describe it was that our room looked like a hotel room, only every piece of the furniture looked like it was homemade right here in this very camp. On the other hand, seeing how the bed frame looked like it was made of thick twigs and flowers, I wasn't so sure if it was completely safe to sleep on.

"Ooh. This looks cozy." Faith settled her bag down on the wooden floor, sat on the left bed, and roamed her eyes around the room.

"I don't know what I think about the 'naturey' look, but I guess it's alright." I mentioned, removing the weight of my bag off my shoulders and dropping it to the floor.

"This is supposed to be a tent, but it's kind of built like a building." Faith mentioned, noticing the structural wooden beams holding the actual tent up.

"I wonder why they did it like this." I pondered about as I tapped my finger on my chin. "Was it to make it feel more like camping or was it just cheaper to make tents instead of log cabins?"

"As long as it's comfortable, I don't care at all." She carelessly threw the rest of her upright body onto the bed and smiled widely as she stretched out her arms.

"Don't fall asleep just yet." I warned her, remembering that she had been dozing off on the bus. "We've got to go to the docks or something, remember?"

Faith flapped her lips like a deflating balloon and slowly stood up. "Oh, yeah… And I was just ready to fall right asleep too."

"Now who's the one who's having trouble staying up?" I crossed my arms and smirked at her.

"Oh, shut up…" She shyly turned away and stood up from the bed.

I walked over to the opening flaps of the tent and slightly ducked under to make it through before I was suddenly approached by an unexpected figure.

"There you are!"

I immediately jumped at the sight of the grinning girl, but once I was able to realize who it had been, I disapprovingly shook my head. "Rarity?! Why'd you jump out at me like that?!"

"Jump out at you how, darling? I knew it was you I had seen coming to this tent." She stretched out her head and took a long look at the gemstone imprinted on the tent. "Ooh! Did you get Opal? I have a cat named Opal!"

"…you do?" I simply responded with, seeing as I had nothing else to really bring up.

"Oh, yes! She's just the sweetest!" She paused for a short moment and lightly shook her head. "Anyways, I was wondering where you ran off to. I could have used a little help with my luggage."

A little, huh?

"Sorry…" I apologized, unwilling to let her know how I had been actually trying to avoid her for the time being. "I, uh, got caught up in something… Were you able to get your bags out?"

Hearing those last words come out of my own mouth, I almost wanted to slap myself. If she still had bags lying around for me to pick up, I was sure she would drag me along and leave me no chance to slip away.

"Oh, no. I handled that all on my own." She answered.

"H-Huh?!" I softly widened my eyes due to another surprise she slapped me with yet again.

"My bags, darling." She repeated as if I didn't hear her. "I managed to move the luggage by myself."

I couldn't comprehend the words that were coming out of her mouth for a few seconds, jumbling my own words around a bit. "B-But… S-So, why did you need me to move your stuff in the first place?!"

She placed her hands on her cocked hips as she responded. "Is it so wrong to ask for help from a friend time-to-time? Such a gentleman as yourself wouldn't want a lady to hurt herself doing a hazardous amount of heavy lifting, would you?"

I remained silent. I couldn't understand her thought process behind it. Was she just used to having others, especially guys, do that kind of work for her when she's perfectly capable of doing it herself? Either way, I didn't want to pursue it any further. The work she had me help her with was already done. I just wanted to leave it at that.

"Don't forget! We'll be going over a few things at the docks in a few minutes!" I heard the female camp counselor chirp nearby.

"We better get going." Faith stepped by my side and began leading me away from our tent.

"See you later." I slightly waved towards Rarity before sighing reasonably loud when we were far enough. "I really hope she doesn't end up using me for hard labor."

"You're a new friend." Faith reminded. "She's probably just trying to get to know you better through her own way."

As always, Faith tended to share an optimistic way of looking at things when it came to me.

* * *

There was already a group of other students waiting by the docks for the "safety rules" talk to get started when we arrived at the designated area.

"Oh. You feel that?" Faith asked, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "That breeze is so nice! I can't wait to get started with camp!"

Digging my hands into my pockets, I was easily aware that we seemed to be on two different wavelengths. "It's hard to understand how you're so excited. I mean, sure, it beats being home, but it's not like we're at an amusement park or something."

"Camp _is_ nature's amusement park. Come on, Chase. What will it take for you?" She leaned towards me and flashed a mischievous smirk. "Oh, I know. I bet I need to bring Twilight in here for you, don't I?"

I didn't have an answer for her right away. In fact, all I could do was turn my cheeks that were slowly heating up away from her as I tried to come up with a satisfactory response. To my surprise, we heard another voice thankfully interject into our conversation. I would've expected it to be Sunset Shimmer, but the voice obviously didn't fit the tone of any girl we knew. It was most definitely a guy's voice, and this puzzled me since I don't remember having any dudes for friends, which was weird enough.

"Faith? Faith, is that you?"

"Huh?" Faith's head diverted away from me. Once she realized who had been speaking to her, she immediately straightened her back and looked oddly nervous. "Oh, _hey_ …um…Flash."

Flash?

I finally joined her in turning in the same direction she was facing at. Someone we hadn't exactly met from Canterlot High seemed to pay particular attention to Faith for some reason. However, he _did_ look somewhat familiar.

"No way!" He nearly yelled out in enthusiasm. "It's really you! I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

"Yeah. Me either…" It didn't seem that Faith could keep her eyes in link with this "Flash" fellow. They'd slowly slide back on over to me.

"You know, you really left a mark on me the last time we saw each other." He mentioned, slowly rubbing his left cheek.

"Hehe…" She appeared to force out an awkward giggle.

Feeling dots connect within my brain, I began piecing together essential events that I had learned from Faith. Finally, I remembered that one guy in particular that Faith hid from during the Friendship Games.

Hold on. _This_ is the guy that Faith had clocked on the jaw? No wonder she's acting so weird right now!

"So, what brings you here?" He asked.

"I, uh, I kind of transferred back here." She answered.

"Seriously?" He reacted with genuine surprise. "You have _no_ idea how much you've missed out on! You wouldn't believe all the stuff that happened ever since you left! First, there was this—"

It looked like Flash was heavily getting into the subject, almost as if he was geeking out about a particular movie or game he was passionately invested in.

"You don't have to tell me." Faith stopped him before he could get too excited. "Sunset Shimmer told me everything."

"Oh, she did? Are you two on good terms now? The last thing I knew was that…well…you know." He paused shortly and finally seemed to notice me when he caught me observing their conversation. "Oh, sorry! I didn't even notice you there. Are you friends with her?"

"'Friend' is a bit of an understatement." Faith seemed to relax a bit when the spotlight was on me now. "We're like ultra-mega super best friends."

"Something like that." I finally answered, coinciding with her definition. "I'm Star Chaser, but you can just call me Chase."

" _Oh_ , you're _that_ guy!" Flash responded wildly for a second, startling me. "Right? The dude that had this fight with the other principal from Crystal Prep? Did you really get expelled? Is that why you're here too?"

I understood why Faith had been avoiding this guy during the Friendship Games due to what happened before, but after talking with him for some time now, I was almost beginning to believe that avoiding him was an overreaction. The guy seemed like a friendly chatterbox, but then again, maybe that was a part of the reason.

"No, I didn't." I answered. "I chose to leave because forget that. You saw how Crystal Prep was during the Friendship Games."

"No, I get you, man. I would leave too if I had to deal with a bunch of people like that every day."

"Listen up, everyone!" A cheerful voice erupted a reasonably short length away from us. "Now that you're all here, I can finally get through the boring but important stuff that you need to know."

"I better get going." Flash decided. "It was nice seeing you, Faith. Oh, I'm Flash Sentry by the way, but you can just call me Flash." He faced me and held a hand out. After shaking it, he began turning to walk in the other direction. "We should catch up later on." He directed to Faith.

"Yeah, sure." Faith agreed to as we watched him give a short wave before walking off. It wasn't long before I heard a long-winded breath escape out from her lips. "Wow. I definitely wasn't expecting _that_ to happen right at this minute. Either way, it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I guess I'm glad that I've got that over with now."

"You were _expecting_ that to happen in the first place?" I asked.

"Well, duh." She answered. "Remember? We're going to the same school as him, much less going to the same camp his school is going to. We were bound to run into him eventually. At least, _I_ was."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

She remained a bit quiet for a moment as she began turning her head away and grabbed her left wrist with her right hand. "…so…what did you think?" She questioned, her cheeks growing noticeably red.

"About him? I can't really see why you were so afraid of him back at the Friendship Games." I voiced my thoughts. "He could probably talk your ear off, but he seems like a harmless guy. Are those the kinds of guys you're actually into?"

"N-No!" She nearly yelled out before covering her lips with her mouth. Her face continued to heat up like a stovetop as she elaborated on her answer. "I mean, I _was_ , but that was just a little crush because of what you see on TV and I stupidly thought it would be like a drama and have one of those sweet little relationships but—"

I hurriedly put my hands on her lips once I realized what had been going on with our surroundings. Faith's nervous outburst had been garnering attention, especially since our camp guide had been explaining those safety rules she had mentioned a while ago at the same time Faith had been slightly freaking out.

"Uh, everything okay over there?" Gloriosa had asked, leaning past the other campers in order to get a look at our situation.

"Yep!" I tried to normally answer.

After a few long seconds, she resumed talking and the attention on us began to die down.

"Lake activities are available every day until sunset, so if you want to canoe, sail, windsurf, or swim, just let me know…"

I sighed, and it took me a moment before I realized how much of a direct feel I had with all the heat that had been currently circulating within Faith's extremely flushed face. I still took a short moment to make sure she had calmed down with the volume of her voice before I slowly removed my hand away from her mouth.

"Sorry…" She apologized softly, looking away in embarrassment.

"It's okay." I returned. "Sorry for making you freak like that…"

"That was always like you, huh?" Another voice intervened. However, this time, it was Sunset Shimmer. She had been staring at us with a quirky smile as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'm not dating him anymore. You can go for him this time, if you want."

"Oh, shut up!" Faith managed to hold back from yelling and exclaimed through a hush instead.

"You saw him come by here?" I asked Sunset, finding her knowledge of the conversation unexpected.

"Mm-hm." She nodded before her smile transformed into a small frown. "I can't say I still don't feel bad for what I did. After all, I _did_ purposely get in the way of you two." She directed to Faith, most likely talking about Flash and her.

Faith shook her head, the heat in her face seeming to dissipate. "I was super angry too, but now that I think about it, I think it was actually a good thing you did. I probably would have never transferred out of CHS and met Chase." She subtly glanced over at me with her cheeks lightly rising from her smile. "He's the best thing I could ever ask for."

This time, I couldn't lock my eyes with her. Her cheeks had still been a little red from before, and I felt myself breaking our gaze before I knew it.

"Hm." I noticed Sunset Shimmer raise her index finger and thumb to her lips as she seemed to study us for a while. "You guys really _are_ strange…"

Just as I was about to try to get some clarity on that comment, we heard some commotion nearby us. It seemed none of us had even noticed the situation that appeared to have been going on for a while. Our principal and vice principal had gathered around the docks, along with the camp guides, and directed their attention towards something particular at the base of the dock. From what I could see, it looked to be as if large splinters of wood were poking out from a specific spot of the dock, almost as if it had been broken due to old age.

"This is a safety hazard." Our vice principal noticed from the sight. "I suggest we close down the dock for the remainder of the camp."

From what I could see, everyone that had been with us groaned out loudly in response.

"Oh, I'm sure it won't have to be for the remainder of camp." Gloriosa quickly stated, her swift response most likely forming from the disgruntled campers in front of her. "Just needs to be patched up a bit. I've got this!"

Was that thing like hundreds of years old or something?

"No dock?" Faith said to herself. "But, we can still go swimming and stuff, right?"

"Or maybe _we_ do!" A southern accent chimed from the group of unhappy campers. "If you ask me, this whole dock needs to go." We noticed Applejack walking up to the dock and giving it a little kick before one of the pillars of wood supporting a part of the dock unintentionally cracked and fell over, proving her point. "Building a new one could be our camp gift. Sure, it would benefit us, but a nice new dock would benefit future campers, too."

Her idea garnered approval from her classmates, but there was still some doubt lingering by.

"I don't know. It's an awful lot of work." Timber acknowledged. "I wouldn't want you guys to miss out on doing other fun camp stuff because you're so busy building a dock for _future campers_." He crossed his arms and seemed to eye his sister intensively. She returned the same look for some reason, and I could only assume that they had some kind of family drama that was intentionally cutting in with their work.

"I hear what you're saying, Timber, but we're Canterlot Wondercolts." Despite the sight, Rainbow Dash marched in with a striking aura of confidence emitting from her. "We've got a reputation to uphold! And there was no way we're gonna leave this place without contributing the most awesome camp gift ever! I'm with AJ. Building a new dock is definitely it! What do you guys think?"

After practically everyone else applauded and cheered, the two camp counselors continued to glare at each other with sharp eyes.

"Looks like it's settled, then." Gloriosa mentioned loudly enough to her brother.

"Looks like it." Timber almost shoved through his teeth aggressively.

"That's some tension, all right." Sunset Shimmer said as she bit the nail on her thumb.

"Hm?" Faith wondered about as she turned towards Sunset. She either didn't notice the looks the counselors had been giving each other or she just didn't think too much about it.

"You haven't noticed how angry our camp guides have been with each other?" Sunset asked.

"Eh. As long as it doesn't become the spotlight of this field trip, I don't really care." I interjected into the conversation. "Everybody's got their issues. I'm actually wondering more about this dock that we're apparently going to build now? Do you think every one of us is going to have to help with that?"

"Why? You don't want to?" Faith turned and asked me.

"It's just… One of the things I was looking forward to coming here was taking a break away from home, especially after leaving Crystal Prep. But, ever since this morning, I've been caught doing things I've never really intended to do, like helping Rarity with her bags. Now, we're building a new _dock_ out of nowhere, and it feels like my dad dragging me outside with a bundle of wood in my arms all over again."

"I don't know how it is at home, but come on, it won't be so bad." Sunset Shimmer shared with a smile.

"Everyone's working together." Faith pointed out. "It'll be done in no time."

"Faith's right. Think of it as…bonding time with your friends." Sunset suggested.

I only lightly sighed underneath my breath. Either way, I didn't think I was going to get out of it. I'd feel bad if I just skipped out while everyone else did the work, so I supposed all I could do was just keep tasting a bit of home for a little longer until we were done.

* * *

All the guys were pretty much assigned to begin tearing down the old dock. Being a guy myself, it was inevitable that I would join them with the task. I managed to catch a glimpse of Flash Sentry every now and then, but I didn't pay much attention and only focused on tearing out pieces of wood from the dock. Meanwhile, I believed all of the other girls were focusing on designing the dock on paper. Nevertheless, I was surprised when it actually came to building the dock. Some of the girls actually helped in doing some manual labor, but it was mostly Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Since Applejack was a farm girl and Rainbow Dash was an athlete, I guess it was expected of them.

I had just finished bringing in and setting down a stack of wood when I found the two girls nailing a piece of wood together. I sort of just wanted to keep on moving, but I couldn't get this nagging feeling out of my stomach to ask them if they needed help.

"Want some help?" I felt a slightly forced tone come out of my mouth.

Thankfully, they didn't seem to notice it.

"Sure! We could really get this dock finished a lot faster." Applejack answered happily.

"Although, try and get a hammer from the toolbox instead of making one yourself." Rainbow Dash advised weirdly. "It's kind of a waste of time when you can just walk a few steps and pick one up that's ready to be used." She said as she paid particular attention to Applejack.

I glanced over at what had been in her hand and found that she had wrapped some kind of firm stick with a block of stone. I was impressed, but at the same time, I was partially puzzled. There _had_ to be too much weight at the end of her stick. If she was able to properly control the handling of her self-made hammer, she must have been way stronger than she looked.

"Yeah. Sure, thing…" I answered and walked out the end of the dock.

As I came back, I didn't even realize how close the dock was to being finished. After all, it helped when I didn't have a bunch of wood obscuring my vision of it. It was actually looking a lot better than the old one. Despite the sight, Sunset Shimmer was right about the work not being as bad as I thought. As much as I still wanted to keep from doing things I'd do at home, it was at least nice do this kind of work with friends instead. It didn't take much to get started on following the pattern that they had already set, so I began following their lead and nailing the wood down to the studs of the docks.

"You've done this sort of thing before?" I heard Applejack ask me.

"Yeah, kind of." I answered, keeping my eyes on safely hammering the nails. "Never with a dock though. I help my dad build things from time to time. Sometimes, I even help do home renovations and stuff like that."

"Nice to hear you're pretty handy." Applejack responded. "I had to help Rainbow here get the hang of things."

"I play sports, not build stuff." Rainbow Dash looked up with a set of half-lidded eyes. It was almost as if she took Applejack's comment as an insult.

"And you with that hammer?" I mentioned to Applejack. "If you can handle that like a regular hammer, you must be pretty strong."

"What can I say? I love work like this." Applejack proudly admitted before resuming her nailing.

After finishing the nails on the other side of the board facing the ocean, I took a short break and wiped off the sweat that began forming at the top of my forehead. At the same time, I caught a look back at the lakeside and found someone that I had missed among the count of the girls working. While the rest of the girls were mainly working on the décor, I had found Twilight by a particular table. If my eyes weren't failing me, I noticed that she was talking to the camp counselor, Timber Spruce. To tack on something else, it looked like she was pretty interested in whatever conversation she was having with him.

I didn't know how to feel about this. In fact, I believed I was starting to grow a little agitated at the sight, so I rather forcefully turned my head away from whatever it was I saw and went back to hammering nails. "Hmph." I voiced louder than I intended. From my peripheral vision, I believed Applejack may have glanced over my way, but I intentionally ignored her for the time being.

After some more silent hammering and nailing, we were able to finish the base of the dock for the most part before Principal Celestia made an announcement to every one of us.

"All right, now. You've made a lot of progress, but it's going to be getting dark soon. We can pick this up tomorrow between our other camp activities."

I stood up and wiped off any remaining sweat on my forehead. I slipped out a breath of relief, ready to get some kind of moment of relaxation. As mentioned somewhat before, I didn't find all this labor work entertaining, but it was a heck of a lot better doing it with friends than back home.

"Good work, partner." I felt a quick pat on my shoulder before I found Applejack walking past me and towards the end of the dock.

"Everyone, get cleaned up, and we'll gather by the fire pit at eight to share s'mores and scary stories!" Gloriosa announced.

" _S'mores!_ " I could hear Pinkie Pie squeal out in excitement.

I remained standing at the dock for sometime before I turned and had a look at the horizon. The sun was setting, and it was definitely a nice change from the straight daylight I had been underneath. At that moment, I began feeling a warming sensation inside of me. I couldn't quite describe it, but it was the same kind of feeling I'd get back with Faith at the beach house. It was also the same kind of feeling of sitting in front of a fireplace on a snowy winter night and drinking hot cocoa. I guess it was safe to say that I was looking forward to the sharing of scary stories under the stars tonight.

"It's pretty, isn't it?"

I found Faith joining me by my side as she stared out at the setting sun.

"Careful." I warned. "There's no railing, you know."

"You talk to me like I'm an idiot sometimes." She returned a cheery look and giggled lightly. Then, with lowered eyelids, she angled her head towards the wooden floor below us. "Then again, maybe I can be one sometimes."

"No, not really." I answered a little seriously. "Either way, you're fine the way you are, so don't start doubting yourself or anything."

She snickered for a bit and clearly tried to hold it back before she began laughing out loud. "Why are you so serious sometimes? Is something on your mind?"

I began thinking about how Twilight had been making conversation with Timber, and it definitely didn't look like it was about her having any questions about the camp or anything. As I was thinking about this, I was already growing bothered at the fact. I didn't want to become some kind of insanely jealous person, so I decided to swallow it down whole and ignore it as long as I could.

"Nothing, really. Come on. Let's head back." I answered and turned around towards the end of the dock as I dug my hands into my pockets.

" _Whoa!_ "

I quickly turned back as I felt my eyes shoot open. I was expecting to see Faith in some kind of danger, but all I saw was her laughing as she softly pointed at my face.

"I love the look on your face. Hehe!"

My eyelids lowered in annoyance, seeing as I thought Faith was about to fall over.

"Hey, you said it yourself! I'm 'fine the way I am', remember?" Afterward, she began lightly pushing me towards the direction of our tents. "Hurry! Tonight's going to be amazing!"

* * *

Just as Gloriosa had advised us, we went and got cleaned up before we gathered around the campfire in a new setting close to camp.

It was a no-brainer that we would be sitting in an area that was practically _in_ the woods. Trees were all around us, and it gave off the appearance that we were nowhere close to a safe and spacious camp. I supposed 'scary stories' wouldn't be as effective if you didn't feel like something from beyond the trees could reach out and grab you at any moment.

As what anyone would expect from a "sharing stories by the campfire" experience, each of us sat on woodened logs or stumps with roasted marshmallows. As for the stories themselves, they weren't that very scary. I couldn't speak for the others, but for me, it was probably because I pretty much assumed they were all fake anyway. Not only that, there were also some stories that were just plain bizarre.

"...And that's when she looked down and realized she was wearing purple socks with a burgundy dress!" Rarity shrieked as she reached the conclusion of her story. To be utterly honest, her screaming was the most frightening part of the story. In fact, she looked terrified of hearing the story herself, even though she was the one telling it.

No one looked scared at all, and this was when I turned over to Faith, who had been sitting next to me and nibbling on her marshmallow. "I don't get it. Is it because they're like the same color or something?" I whispered.

"I dunno." She mumbled through her chewing, staring blankly at Rarity as she continued to freak out.

"Purple and burgundy, darlings!" She explained after noticing everyone's reactions. "The same color family!" She screeched out yet again, but it quickly came to a halt when no one looked amused.

"Maybe she should have said her feet were all black and slimy instead." Faith suggested softly.

"Ahem." Vice Principal Luna cleared her throat, as if to divert attention away from the failed performance. "Anyone else have a spooky story?"

"I have one." Timber raised his hand, immediately turning everyone's heads towards him. "But I'm warning you, you might as well hug a friend now. That's how scary it is!"

"Psh." I rolled my eyes and lightly leaned back, expecting it to be another similar kind of story you could easily find on the internet.

"It's time I told you about the legend of Gaea Everfree." He continued, beginning his narration of his story. "Many years ago, my great-grandparents came to this forest. Seeing its beauty, they decided that it would be the perfect place for a camp. But once they started building, strange things started to happen. One pitch black night, when the wind was howling, a tree branch crashed through the roof of their cabin! They screamed and ran outside, only to see the giant creature rising from the earth! She had wild hair like the roots of a tree. Her mouth had jagged rock teeth and her eyes were pools of black tar. But her aura shimmered like diamonds. Anywhere she went, she left a trail of gem dust in her wake. Trembling, my great-grandparents asked who she was and what she wanted. In a deep and hollow voice, she told them that her name was Gaea Everfree – an ancient spirit who held domain over the forest, and that my great-grandparents were trespassing on her land. They begged her to let them stay and build their camp, to share this wonderful place with others. Gaea Everfree finally agreed but warned them that they would not be able to keep it forever. Someday, she will return and reclaim the forest as her own. So if you see a trail of gem dust, you'll know that it is..." Timber raised his arms and angled his fingers in the form of clams. "Gaea Everfree!" He raised his voice and shouted.

Surprisingly, there was a collective number of screams and gasps, and I had to admit, I jumped a little when I realized what had been behind Timber. It was some kind of shadow, but once it came out into the light of the fire, it was actually just Gloriosa. It was almost like if the two of them had planned this.

"Hey, guys! Sorry, didn't mean to scare you!" she apologized.

"Then why'd you come out of the bushes?" I heard Sunset Shimmer ask.

"I... took the scenic route, because the forest is beautiful at night." She explained. "But no one else should do it without a guide, kay?"

Like anyone would want to walk through the woods by themselves at night…

"All right, everybody, time to head to your tents." She directed.

"Welp. You heard her." I pressed my hands against my knees and stood myself up, ready to hit the sack. However, I was surprised to notice Faith looking out into the woods. She wasn't trembling like some of the others had been, but she was almost deathly quiet, kind of like if she had just seen something scary in the woods. "Hey. You okay?" I asked.

Faith shook her head and stood herself up. "Yeah…"

"You don't actually _believe_ that story, do you?"

"I don't know…" She massaged her left arm and lowered her head with a doubtful kind of look on her face. "Do you remember what happened at the Friendship Games? I wouldn't be surprised if that story was real, and that monster was some magical creature from, what was it again, Equestria?"

"If it is, then the girls can just use _their_ magic and defeat it easy-peasy like last time." I told her that, almost like if all this had been a fantasy. In a way, I still couldn't believe that there was really that so-called "magic". "You'll feel better when you get to sleep."

"Yeah, okay…" She still remained doubtful as we began joining the others in the walk back to our tents. Nevertheless, since we had stayed back a little longer, we were kind of behind everyone. I found the silence from our walk relaxing, but Faith thought otherwise when I felt her slip her hand into mine.

"You seriously think some creature's going to come out and get you?" I asked.

"Just let me do this, please?" She pleaded sincerely.

I sighed but nodded my head. "Alright."

Ironically, I could only hope that no one was near enough to see us like this, especially Gloriosa and Timber. It definitely wouldn't help our case regarding the tents if they saw us holding hands.

* * *

Despite her wish to stick close to me, Faith and I had to separate to shower off after today. I was a little uncomfortable because the showers were all in one building. Just like public bathrooms, one section was for the guys, and one was for the girls. Thankfully, each shower had its separate stall, but it was still a little weird that they were so close together.

I felt a _lot_ better after the hot shower though, but Faith had made me promise to wait for her outside the building. So, the "after-shower freshness" was a little ruined doing just like she asked me to. Either way, I was still looking forward to getting under my sheets.

Once she was out and about, she quickly hurried us back to our tent. From there, she immediately zipped close the tent as if it was a sure deal it would keep out any "monsters" lurking out in the woods.

"Oooh. I feel so much better." Faith dropped to her bed.

"Better get some sleep." I suggested as I lifted the covers of my bed and slipped into them. "Don't want _Gaea Everfree_ to come and get you." I had meant that sarcastically, but a noticeable silence surfaced from my roommate. I took a look at her and found her staring absentmindedly at the ceiling of the tent. "I was kidding. There's no Gaea Everfree, Faith." I cleared up with her.

"Y-Yeah…" She slowly slid underneath her blankets.

Finding the light from out the window bothersome, I stretched out my arm and picked up the loose flap to pull it down. The tent was totally shrouded in darkness, which was much more liking to me. Just as I was about to close my eyes, I heard a hushed voice across my bed.

"…it's so dark…" She said worriedly.

"Isn't it always dark like this in your room when you go to sleep?" I asked.

"But it's my _room_. My room that's safely a part of my house. We may be in a tent, but we're still out in the woods. What if there's a dangerous bear or even some weird creepo hanging around outside?"

Feeling too tired to give her a detailed answer, I kept it simple. "We'll be fine, Faith."

She didn't respond right away for a good moment.

"You'll protect me in case anything happens, right?"

Even though I didn't lie, I also didn't really take her question too seriously. "Yep, I will. Now, get some sleep, okay?"

"…okay."

I heard shuffling over from her bed. It sounded like there was constant tossing and turning ever so often, but it subsided after some point. Just as I felt like I was about to finally fall asleep, I heard her voice whisper over to me one more time.

"…maybe we should bring our beds together."

For a variety of reasons, I didn't answer. Instead, I remained totally quiet and hoped that she'd end up believing I had fallen asleep.

To my surprise, she somehow seemed to catch me in the act some way or another.

"I know you're still awake…meanie…"

Even though she was telling the truth, it was hard to tell if she was bluffing. Despite her call out, continuing to talk to her would only keep the both of us awake.

For her own good, I kept both my eyes and my mouth shut for the rest of the night.


	3. Constrainment

I felt myself slipping out of my unconscious state at some point, but my eyelids were still closed. I didn't feel awake enough to open them right away. In fact, I felt the strong need to keep them shut for as long as I could. It hadn't occurred to me that I had been someplace else besides my bed at home until I kept quiet for some time to subtly recollect my thoughts.

Despite the circumstances, I couldn't keep my eyes closed or my body still because I unexpectedly realized that the position of my body felt a little awkward and uncomfortable. It was like I was only taking up a small portion of my bed when there was much more space I could have freely used.

Finally, I pulled out of my lazy mindset for a minute and began to shift myself to where I could lay more comfortably, but it suddenly felt like there was no more room. It was almost like I was squeezed between two walls. Maybe it wasn't _that_ bad, but it certainly felt like there was _something_ blocking my path.

Upset and bothered by this blockage, I opened and squinted my eyes and took a look around me. From what I could see, there was this huge lump right beside me. My vision was still a little unclear, and at what I could only assume was during an extremely early time, my thoughts still weren't the smartest or well-thought out.

Despite whatever it may have been, I began pushing this lump away, possibly believing it may have been some kind of pillow for whatever reason. Instead, the lump was practically planted on top of the bed like a sandbag, and strange noises actually began to come from it.

"Mmm! _No!_ " A voiced whined like a child unwilling to get up from bed.

At that point, it was pretty easy to see what had been going on. Confirming my suspicions by taking a gander at the empty bed across me, I sighed as heavily as I could and somewhat surrendered by laying back down. Although the circumstances hadn't been the same, it wasn't exactly the first time that this kind of situation came to be.

I woke back up again in what I could only assume was a few hours later. I could see light peeking out from underneath the flap that covered the window, but just as I was about to reach out to pull it up, I was stopped by the same bump on the bed from earlier. Sitting at an upright position, I took a glance at the figure with somewhat heavy eyes.

The comforter we ended up sharing reached up to just about below her shoulders. She laid on her side with, what appeared to be, her phone right beside a slightly outstretched hand. At that point, I found that it was slightly odd how I had been the first to wake up before she did. My only guess was that she possibly didn't get as much sleep last night. Did those stories from the campfire really get to her?

I lightly shook my head as I made an attempt to find a way out of the bed without disturbing her. I didn't know what the deal was with our counselors and if they were able to sort of walk in whenever they wanted, but Faith could be so innocently careless sometimes. If either of the camp counselors saw us like that, it could probably mean bad news for us, not to mention all the rumors that would most likely surface because of it. At any point, I could only hope we had some sort of privacy in order to dispel any chance of something like that happening.

I finally raised the flap and felt my eyes painlessly burn due to the volley of light from outside. At that time, I began hearing faint chatter coming from outside the tent. I almost wanted to zip open the tent flaps, but seeing as Faith was still soundly asleep, I made do with observing what I could through the only window we had.

I began wondering if we had wake-up calls at Camp Everfree, but judging from what I could hear from the sounds and voices outside, it didn't seem like any of the counselors were going around and waking people up. In fact, Gloriosa seemed very keen on the idea of giving us the "best week" of camp, and I suppose a part of that dealt with allowing campers to get up whenever they wanted. At the same time, I'd have to admit that there's really no point in being at camp if you're just going to sleep through it.

I searched for my phone near the bed and picked it up once I found it. Briefly turning on the screen, I noticed the time was a little after ten. Glancing over at Faith, I found that it was especially weird that she hadn't been up yet. I decided I would sit at the side of her bed and just wait for a bit before I'd try waking her up.

A fairly distinguishable buzz arose in my hand, accompanied by a subtle and brief shake. Having had nothing else to do, I pulled up the screen of my phone to find an unread text message.

 _Twilight and I are heading out on a boat right now. You and Faith wanna come with? I think she's been feeling pretty down lately. You guys are pretty close with her, right? Maybe she'll feel better with you two here._

Sunset Shimmer had sent that.

I don't know, Sunset. _Am_ I close to her?

Reading that message made me recall the sight of her with that particular camp counselor, Timber Spruce. Honestly, the whole reason why I tried to forget and ignore it in the first place was that I didn't want to get any kind of negative feelings like jealously. She may have said hi to me on the bus, but seeing her talk to someone she just met yesterday more than someone she's known for a few years really bothered me.

I shook my head almost fervently.

I need to get back on track on tossing those thoughts.

"Mmm." I heard a soft moan in front of me. I looked away from my phone and found Faith dragging her hand across the portion of bedsheets in front of her closed eyes. Her eyebrows occasionally furrowed and softened as if she was fighting to stay asleep. Nevertheless, at some point, her hand stopped once her fingertips reached the top of her phone screen. She began to tilt the screen towards her as her eyes lightly opened. After a second or two, they immediately widened open. "Huh?!"

"Hm?" I casually responded.

She immediately tossed the blanket away from her and swung her bare feet over to the floor of the bed. It was only a matter of time before her eyes caught wind of mine, and she nearly threw herself at me as a result.

"You were up and you didn't even wake me?!"

"What are you so worked up about?" I asked calmly. "It's not even noon. Besides, I just got up a few minutes ago."

She turned away from me and began rummaging through her bag. "We're only going to be in the camp for a week. That means we only have seven days to do all the cool stuff they have here!"

"I don't think we need every _entire_ day for that…" I answered, lifting myself from her bed and digging my hands into my pockets.

She pulled out one of the camp shirts and lightly tossed it somewhere nearby before pulling the ends of her own shirt up. However, she immediately paused in the middle of her action and slowly turned towards me with scarlet scribbled over the surface of her cheeks. I, myself, was embarrassed that I hadn't even realized what she was trying to do until she gave me that look.

"Right…" I said as I started heading towards the zipped entrance of our tent.

I practically already had on what I was going to wear today, so I decided to wait for her outside.

* * *

I didn't notice it at first, but I found myself standing in front of the tent as if I was some kind of guard. I didn't think anyone else would try to walk inside for whatever reason, but it seemed to provide some kind of use in the end in regards to what Faith was doing inside. Meanwhile, I remembered about the text Sunset Shimmer had sent and pulled up my phone. I decided it would be best to respond as soon as I was able to since it was entirely possible that they were waiting for our answer.

 _Faith and I sort of just got up a while ago. I'm waiting on her to finish getting ready right now. I'll see if she wants to go out on the boat. I'm kind of guessing she does._

I sent that message out and dug my phone in my pocket. Several seconds later, my phone vibrated in response.

 _Looks like we won't be going out on the boat after all. The dock is totally trashed._

I felt my eyebrows shoot up as I nearly started to intensely tap sections on my screen.

 _Trashed?! What do you mean?! Like it's broken?! We just started working on that yesterday!_

A few more seconds later…

 _Something really strange happened. It's better if you come to see it for yourself._

I continued to stare endlessly at my phone even after hearing movements coming from the flaps of our tent.

"So, what's first on the agenda for today?" I heard. "Hm?"

I became startled at the feeling of something pressing up against me. Over my right shoulder, I found Faith taking a look at my phone out of curiosity. It felt as if my heart skipped a beat at the sight of her. I couldn't help but reveal my initial reaction to her.

"Don't scare me like that!" I stated after spending a second to catch my breath.

"Scare you?" She asked a little worriedly. "Just what were you looking at?"

I shook my head. "There's something we should probably check out. I heard something happened to the docks."

"The docks? You mean the one we were rebuilding yesterday?"

"The one and only. Come on." I guided her. As we began walking, I remembered about something I had actually wanted to ask her. "By the way, I meant to ask you something. Were you _really_ so spooked up about that Gaea Everfree story that you felt the need to slip into my bed last night?"

Heat visibly rose up within her cheeks.

"…s-so what if I was?" She averted her eyes away from mine and crossed her arms behind her back.

I sighed lightly in response. "Look. If that story really _was_ true, do you really think this camp would still be open? Not only that, if there was a real monster on the loose, you don't just tell everyone like that. It's all fake. It's just like those 'creepy' stories you read on the internet."

"But, don't you ever get creeped out by those stories too?" Faith asked, leaning towards me with her fists lightly clenched.

"Sure, by the idea of them. They're nothing to lose sleep over though."

"Well, to be fair, Chase, after what happened at the Friendship Games, I don't know if you can still think like that." She reminded.

Our conversation ended by the time we arrived at the docks to see the big commotion around it. Just from having a glance, I could see the major damage that Sunset had texted me about. Somehow, pieces of the freshly placed wood were scattered over the lakeside. Over at the docks, I found the girls appearing to look over the damage that had been done. Feeling a little frenzied, I nearly jogged over to where they were to get a better look for myself. Based on what I saw, it looked as if something heavy had _crashed_ into the docks.

"What happened?!" I asked a bit bitterly, frustrated that all of the work we had done yesterday was practically ruined.

"A couple of the campers were out on the boat, and then all of a sudden, they just rammed straight towards the docks." Sunset Shimmer summarized after finding me behind her.

"Are they okay?" Faith asked worriedly.

"They're fine." Sunset assured. "We're all just wondering how it happened in the first place."

"I'm telling you! It's Gaea Everfree!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

"Oh, don't even bring that up." I requested sourly.

"Well, there _is_ that strange glow from that water." Rarity mentioned.

"'Strange glow'?" Faith repeated before she turned over and gasped sharply. "How did…?"

I turned and had a look for myself, but what I saw was hardly anything that was as so much convincing. "Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Somebody's playing a prank. You guys are really convinced by _that_? Looks like a bunch of food coloring and glitter to me."

"…I don't think someone would go as far as to break the docks for a prank." Sunset pointed out.

"We all saw it happen." Applejack added. "Boat just swooshed in and slammed into the docks. No doubt about it."

I crossed my arms and bellowed out a heavy sigh with a furrow of my brow. "Look, I don't know exactly _what_ happened, but thinking it's because of some creepy magical monster from a stupid campfire story is insane. I'm no detective, so I'm not interested in finding out what did this as long as it doesn't happen again. All I'm saying is that it's definitely not 'Gaea Everfree'."

"I don't think it's Gaea Everfree either." Sunset Shimmer agreed. "But, let's try to calm down a little, alright?" She offered a hand on my shoulder with her sympathetic suggestion. "The damage doesn't look too bad. We may need to replace a few boards, but I think that's it."

I looked over the damaged area and figured that she was right. "I guess you have a point…" I answered in a calmer manner, but I was still a little bitter over the fact that _something_ came in and ruined what we had been doing practically all day yesterday.

"Mind giving us a hand with getting the stuff out of the water?" She asked.

I didn't really think I had a choice. "Sure…" I accepted. Taking another look over at the girls that were gathered, I realized that someone was missing. "Twilight's not with you?"

"Huh?" Sunset Shimmer answered with surprise before she turned back and looked around. "That's weird… She was here a minute ago."

"C'mon." Applejack stood at the edge of the partially destroyed dock and bent over in an attempt to fish out for the pieces of wood floating on the water. "Let's get to picking up these pieces and see where we go on from there."

"Hey, hey." Faith grabbed my hand and began pulling me toward her. "Let's go in the water and get some of the pieces out."

"Huh? Really?" I felt the need to question her on the matter as she sat and began taking her shoes and socks off.

"How else are we going to get those pieces that are too far off from the dock?" She asked.

"But our clothes are going to get all wet." I argued with. "…unless you plan on going—"

"Shut up!" She quickly intervened with flushed cheeks. "We're not going that far in. Hurry up and take your shoes off, or I might just drag you in anyway."

She didn't look like she was taking no for an answer, so with yet another light sigh, I quickly tore off my shoes and socks and carefully began following her into the water.

"Oooh. It's cold." She shivered lightly.

"That's how it usually is at first with the swimming pool…" I reminded, hoping for my body to do its thing and warm up.

"Mmm." She mentioned as her height began sinking down, her legs disappearing into the water rather quickly the more she walked out. "Now, I'm starting to wish I brought my swimsuit so I wouldn't have to worry about getting my clothes drenched."

"You'd be the only one out here in a swimsuit though…" I mentioned.

Faith shivered once more, but it didn't appear to be because of the temperature this time. "Yeah, never mind. I'd feel so weird being out here in a swimsuit while everyone else wasn't. I'd feel like everyone was looking at me…"

"Well, let's just hope this dock doesn't get destroyed again." For some reason, I felt like I'd be eating those words soon enough, but it was probably just the pessimistic mood I was currently in. "Maybe we'll actually be able to use it at some point during our time here."

Faith and I began gathering stray pieces here and there. After we would pick up a handful, we'd walk over to the others at the docks and drop them off there before we'd go out and look for some more. However, at one point, I felt something hard press against my foot. In an alarm, I quickly removed my foot off the object, and in a subtle fit of rage, I dove my hand into the water to find the culprit. Whatever it was, I was ready to wind it up and throw it as far as I could over the water.

Once I found the out of place figure in the land, I caged it with my fingers and drew it out of the water. From what I could feel within my hand, the surface felt surprisingly smooth. In fact, I had calmed down a little when I realized that it wasn't anything sharp that could have really hurt my foot or Faith's. Nevertheless, I unraveled my fingers and had a look for myself. To my surprise, I found a couple of extremely beautiful rocks nestled together on the palm of my hand.

Both of them were really shiny, but one was almost completely black. However, the most eye-catching part of the black one was that there was still some vibrant color spread all over. It looked there had been splotches of green, yellow, red, and blue paint on this rock, but rubbing my finger over the surface confirmed that it had actually been a part of the rock.

As for the other rock, it was the polar opposite of the dark one for the most part. By polar opposite, the next one had been white instead of dark. Looking over it for some time, I found its design familiar. I remembered the gemstone that had been in our tent and came to a wild conclusion.

No way… Could this actually be an opal?

"Chase? What's wrong?" I heard Faith ask behind me. "You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

I shook my head and quickly dug the rocks into my pocket. I didn't believe they were exactly anything rare or important. Someone could have very easily bought these at a shop and happened to lose these in the lake sometime ago. Nevertheless, they were too attractive to ignore. After all, finding these rocks reminded me of the old days when I used to collect cool-looking rocks when I was super young. Although, I never _did_ find out what happened to my collection…

"Don't worry. I'm fine." I replied and began walking over to Faith.

For some time, we continued to pick up pieces in the water, but thankfully, it wasn't for too long. After we had finished finding all the pieces we could see and get a hold of, we returned to the docks and dried ourselves until we were able to cleanly wear our socks and shoes again.

"Oh, my. This _is_ troubling indeed." We heard our principal comment on the sight of the docks. She held her chin with her index finger and thumb for a moment, but she soon replaced that expression by placing her hands on her hips enthusiastically. "However, it's nothing Canterlot Wondercolts can't handle."

I felt my shoulders drop as my posture wilted. I know we pretty much had to patch this up again, but did we really have to spend two days in a row doing this kind of work? Besides the campfire stories, we hardly touched on anything else that people usually did at a camp.

"…but, there's so much Camp Everfree has to offer that you've yet to do. This can wait until tomorrow. You all go ahead and spend the day trying out different activities here at camp." Principal Celestia added.

Everyone seemed to come to a unanimous decision regarding her suggestion, and I was just glad I could actually do something else besides woodwork that I could've easily done at home.

"Ooh! Rock Climbing! I'm calling it!" Rainbow Dash swung her arm in the air violently before running off.

"I want to try that too!" Faith excitedly called out. "Come on, Chase!" She grabbed my hand and began driving me in the same direction that Rainbow Dash had taken off to.

* * *

It wasn't long before the wall had come within in my view, but Faith had suddenly stopped for some reason before we even got close to it. I turned my head to find her holding her hand against her mouth for some reason as if she had witnessed something unpleasant.

But, then I heard her snicker.

"F-Flash? What are you doing?!" She asked through stifled laughter.

He had been staring intently at someone else in particular with a huge grin plastered all over his face. He looked as if he had been observing something that only happened once-in-a-lifetime, but it had actually only been the biggest dude that had attended this camp. Another girl hung around his unnaturally huge biceps as if he had been some kind of swing. Nevertheless, he easily picked her up like a toothpick.

"Are you seeing this?" Flash kept his eyes glued onto him. "This guy is unreal! You should totally go next!"

"Hehe. No thanks." Faith politely declined. "Chase and I were about to try the rock climbing wall. Besides…" Her voice unexpectedly lowered as she began prodding the tip of her index fingers with each other. "I already have someone who picks me up when I'm down…"

I felt my heart jitter when I noticed her pupils point straight towards me from the corner of her eyes. The last thing she said was an immediate reminder to what I did for her at the Friendship Games. Even now, it was extremely difficult to not be embarrassed about it. All I could do was turn my head away and unnecessarily rub the back of my head out of habit.

When we finally arrived at the wall, we found Principal Celestia standing there with a couple sets of harnesses in her possession. By her side, Rainbow Dash heavily tossed and turned as if she was desperately searching for something. Surprisingly, she stopped at the sight of me, and she quickly called me over. "Hey! Spot me! I wanna go up!"

"Sorry, I'm taken." I semi-jokingly responded.

" _What?!_ " Rainbow Dash strained out past her lips as if she was feeling an overwhelming amount of disbelief or if she just didn't catch onto the meaning of the joke.

"Who's the lucky gal?" Faith seemed to play along.

"Who do you think?" I replied with.

"There are a few things I have to go over with you if you'll be spotting." Principal Celestia held out a set of harnesses for Faith and me.

"Count me in." Applejack joined us with Rarity walking behind her.

"AJ! Great timing!" Rainbow Dash shouted out in glee, her eyes glimmering at the sight of her. "I knew you'd come up and spot for me!"

"Actually, Rarity asked me first." Applejack corrected, wiping the cheerful grin off Rainbow Dash's face.

" _What?!_ " She repeated, her arms swinging forward along with her slouched figure.

Our principal went over a few things that sounded all confusing at first. It was how to operate the harnesses and ropes we'd be using to "spot" the climber. Listening to how much she stressed her instructions began making me nervous. However, once I was able to get a feel for how spotting worked, some of those nerves eased. It was quite an easy system, and it was somewhat similar to using an old-fashioned pulley method when it came to lifting something heavy. As long as I paid strict attention to my job and nothing else, I believed I'd do well.

"You ready, Faith?" I asked. "I just hope I'm a good spotter…"

"I trust you." She lightly surprised me as she seemingly said that in full confidence. Afterward, she began fumbling around with her own harness. "On the other hand, I hope I put this on right."

"Let me see." I drew closer to her and immediately began pulling on her straps to make sure they were as tight as they could be.

"C-Chase… You're a little…" I heard her mumble softly, but I was too busy focusing on her straps. I found that there were still some slightly loose straps, so I made them just a little tighter so they were practically hugging her body. Once my inspection was complete, I lifted my head and found myself so much closer to Faith than I had originally thought.

I immediately stepped back and felt the unusual need to apologize. "Sorry. I just wanted to make sure that…" My voice trailed off.

"It's okay." She gently responded. "Worst case scenario, you'll catch me, right?"

I honestly didn't even want to think about the possibility of somehow losing control of the rope or her safety in general, but I nodded either way. Strangely enough, I found comfort that I would be right underneath her. I never actually tried catching a girl like her from a height as tall as the rock climbing wall, but I knew in my heart that I wouldn't falter from stepping in and trying.

"Don't worry." Principal Celestia assured as I watched Faith give the wall a thorough look. "I'll be right here to supervise you both."

Faith slightly adjusted the helmet on her head and appeared to give a firm nod before she began gripping the rocks in front of her with both her hands.

"Applejack, darling, you'll keep an eye on me at all times, right?" Rarity faced her body towards the wall but sent an anxious look back at Applejack. "I'd be deeply scarred if I so much broke a nail."

"I've got your back, Rarity. No worries." Applejack responded with confidence.

"Remember:" Principal Celestia directed towards each of us. "Rock climbing is all about perseverance and trust. Rarity, you can trust that Applejack will spot you."

At this point, I immediately ceased looking at any other direction besides the one that Faith was in. She was starting to climb up, so I needed to fulfill the trust that she had in me and not take my eyes off her. To be honest, it felt a little weird for me when she was all I looked at, especially when I observed every slow and careful step she took to rise up on the wall.

"Yeah, so you can totally go faster than you're going." I heard Rainbow Dash behind me.

"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack scolded.

"Sorry. I've been waiting to do this since we got here." Rainbow impatiently explained herself.

"Well, you have to wait a little longer, darling." Rarity contrasted Rainbow's rudeness with her own tact response.

"You doing okay, Faith?" I asked calmly, even though I felt like I had been walking on thin ice.

"Mm-hm." I heard as she continued to make her way up. Her response sounded a little strained, and I assumed it was because of the energy she had been exhausting in climbing the wall. Taking that into consideration, I decided it would be best if I kept the talking to an absolute minimum.

"Oh, good!" Rainbow exclaimed happily. "Twilight, if you spot me, I can finally go. I'll go get another harness."

I felt my eyes shoot open and my heart jump when I heard her name. I had been so tempted to take a glance around and find her, but I couldn't. It was honestly probably safe to look around for just a second or two, but I wouldn't ever be able to forgive myself if something happened when I had least expected it, especially if it was from being selfish.

"I'm not sure—"

"I better make sure my sister doesn't need anything. See you later?" I heard Timber's voice accompany Twilight's.

At this point, I was heavily conflicted. She had obviously spent some time with him again today, and figuring that out _now_ was the worst. All I could do was shake my head and tell myself to ignore anything having to do with her.

Keep your eyes on Faith. Keep your eyes on Faith.

"Twilight, there you are! I was looking for you!" Sunset's voice now filtered in.

I suddenly felt the ground underneath me shake fairly violently.

"Aah!" I could hear Faith cry out among other soft and small screams that came from others around me.

Fortunately, it only lasted a few seconds, but I quickly called over to Faith. "You okay?! You want me to bring you down?!"

Despite the situation, I was surprised to see Faith stiffly shake her head. "N-No… I'm almost at the top…!"

She really sounded exhausted, but she was still willing to go on. As much as I admired her determination, I was still hoping that she'd ask me to lower her down soon. After, whatever that was, I nearly pleaded for the opportunity to bring her back on the ground.

"Was that an earthquake?" I believed Spike had asked.

"We aren't near any fault lines." Twilight answered.

"Hey! Who left this crystaly dusty stuff here?!"

My palms felt like they were getting sweaty. So many new voices were popping in, especially after what had surfaced from the ground for some reason. It was making me really nervous, yet Faith continued on. From what I could see, her arms appeared to be trembling as she slowly hoisted herself up and grunted with each move she made.

I clenched the rope with all I had.

"Aah!" I suddenly heard Rarity yelp now. "I-I believe I'd like to come down now!"

From what I could tell in my peripheral vision, she had appeared to stop a short distance below Faith.

To my right, I could hear Applejack struggling and fumbling with something. "Sorry, it's a little bit stuck."

All of a sudden, the sound of a rope hoisting something up at a great speed rang in my ears. Next thing I knew, I found myself noticing Rarity's figure zooming towards the very top of the wall. Out of instinct, her fear-ridden scream caused me to look directly at her. She had been pulled to the very top, and it was only a second or two before she came falling down as if the rope holding her had snapped.

I was absolutely frozen. I knew I couldn't do anything since I had been watching Faith, but during the time she had been falling, a million thoughts scurried around in my head. To summarize them, I was afraid that some horrid accident was about to occur in the next minute, and despite my circumstance, I was scared to death of the thought of not being able to do anything about it.

To my great relief, Applejack pulled on her rope as much as she could and brought Rarity to a stop _just_ before she hit the ground.

" _Applejack! What are you doing?!_ " She cried out, clearly shaken up after the incident.

"Is everything okay over there?" Principal Celestia's voice returned in a worried state.

"Uh, I don't know what happened!" Applejack responded, dumbfounded. "I didn't even pull the rope that hard! It's like she was light as a feather all of a sudden!"

"I was scared half to death!" Rarity released through heavy breaths, fidgeting with her harness in an attempt to get it off.

"It wasn't my fault! Let me help you get your harness out."

"No, thank you!" Rarity refused as Applejack began walking over to her, but some huge shiny thing came out of nowhere and pushed Applejack away. It forcefully pushed her past the bushes until she was seen coming back out completely drenched and spitting out water.

"What in the world just happened?!" Principal Celestia asked, rushing over to her.

"Oh, dear! I am so sorry! I think. Did I just do whatever that was?" Rarity asked.

"I don't think it was your fault. I'm gonna go get Applejack a towel." Twilight mentioned a bit depressively behind me.

"Me, too." Sunset said before footsteps walked away from me.

The rope in my hands shook and jiggled, which led me to widen my eyes.

"…Faith!" I tore my head away from the ground and turned up. However, what I witnessed caused me to nearly drop my jaw from astonishment. Even through all that, Faith was slowly attempting to reach the top, but seeing her in her current condition and speed, I wasn't sure if she could last any longer.

"…almost…!" I could hear her say as she stretched out her hand as far as she could to reach the end. I noticed her begin to lift herself up by her toes, but then her foot suddenly slipped. "Ah!"

With clenched fists, I kept her at her current height, my heart pounding especially after what had just happened.

"You okay?!"

Panting, she managed to respond.

"…I…was so…close…"

"Maybe it's best you come down." Principal Celestia suggested, stepping by my side. "At least until we get things settled here."

Faith sighed heavily. "…okay."

I began carefully bringing down Faith, hoping for the best that what happened with Rarity didn't happen to Faith as well. Thankfully, she was back on the ground with no issues whatsoever. With a relieved sigh, I began removing her harness for her.

"Man, I was really worried, you know?" Once the harness was off, I switched over to take off her helmet next. "But, you…" I stopped when the helmet came off and her slightly disheveled hair lifted freely. She had been staring back at me with a reddened face. It took a second to realize that I had been up and close to her yet again. However, I stepped back more slowly this time, lightly tossing her helmet away. "Well, it looks like you're fine…" I ended up with.

Nevertheless, she didn't answer or at least try to answer back right away like last time. Her fairly flushed face remained, and the only movement she made was slightly turning her head away from me. I wasn't sure if it had been something I said or did besides taking off her equipment that made her react like that unexpectedly, but all I could do at the moment was listen in on the conversation the others had in regards to the earlier incident.

* * *

After removing the equipment I had been wearing, Faith and I were allowed to return back to our tent. From what I heard, Principal Celestia and the others never really figured out what had caused the situation from earlier, so she advised the students to keep from using the rock climbing wall for now. Either way, Faith looked exhausted, so I figured she could use a break and relax.

"I wasn't expecting you to go so high…" I sat beside her on her bed and mentioned. "Are you sure you're okay? You looked like you were giving it your all…"

She had been surprisingly quieter than usual, which was something that made me worry even more for her, but then she began chuckling softly for a moment. "I'm really going to feel that tomorrow, huh?"

"I saw your arms shaking up there. That was your first time rock climbing, wasn't it? You didn't need to push yourself so much for your first try…"

"…I…I just thought that I could get it on the first try." She explained a little gloomily. "I was so close too…"

"Come on." I stood up and continued to face her as I dug my hands into my pockets. "You should be proud of yourself. You especially went above and beyond…for a girl."

She blew out a soft air of exhaustion from her mouth.

"…so…how _am_ I 'for a girl'?" She strangely asked.

"What do you mean?" I returned, deeply puzzled.

"Well, you know, how do you…" She paused and seemed to take some time to think for herself. "Actually, never mind, ignore that question…"

She definitely looked down all of a sudden, and I couldn't completely understand why. Did it have something to do with being unable to finish climbing the wall?

"Are you okay? You look…down."

She had laid her hands flat on top of her bedsheets. Her fingers curled up and gripped the bedsheets tightly. I was seeing the whole other side of her. The side of her that was pretty much completely serious when it came to certain topics. I had to admit it; this side was rare to see.

"Hey. I can tell you anything, right? I'm not talking about your usual gossip or dumb secrets. I mean _anything_. And…you won't judge me for it, right? We'll never stop being friends because of it, right?"

It almost sounded like she had committed a crime or something worse. Knowing Faith, I didn't believe she'd ever do something illegal per se, which is what made me all the more worried yet curious. What exactly could be worse than what she's already told me before?

"Y-Yeah…" I answered a little nervously. "I don't think you could dig yourself out of the hole you already have in me." I stopped myself, feeling that my response was a bit out of place. "Wait. That probably came out kind of weird. Sorry."

Nevertheless, she shook her head. "I get it."

I continued standing in front of her, unable to take my eyes off her as I waited to hear what she wanted to tell me.

"Well, I…" She started saying, but then she paused. "Um, I think I…No, I _know_ I…" Her lips soon brought themselves together, but she didn't finish saying what she wanted to say. I continued wordlessly watching her. "Urgh! Why is this so hard to tell you?!" She suddenly snapped. "I just…I just don't want…"

"I don't want you to feel like you have to tell me." I said. "If it's too hard for you, you don't have to."

"But, I want to. So bad." She practically whispered.

I wasn't even sure if I heard her right.

"Well, I'll be here whenever you think you can say it." I sat on the side of my own bed in front of her.

"I know…"

"Attention, campers!" A voice from the P.A. system outside called out. "Anyone who's interested in making floating paper lanterns, please meet us by the picnic tables."

"We've haven't really been able to do much all day. You want to check that out?" I asked.

Faith had been silently averting her eyes to the side as she fumbled around with her fingers. "Yeah, sure…"

By the time we made it over to the picnic tables, a lot of them were pretty much already packed. I began searching for an empty one for us to sit at, but then I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Hey, Twilight's sitting all by herself." Faith pointed her eyes in the direction of a particular table with only one person. "You want to go sit with her?"

I figured that Timber Spruce would be sitting with her, considering how often I had been seeing them speak with each other, but for some reason, he wasn't this time. I didn't know how I felt about sitting with her now, but I supposed that I couldn't just ignore her. She _was_ still my friend…

"Sure." I answered.

We began stepping over to her table, and it wasn't until we were close by when she heard us and looked up from the lantern she had already started working on.

"Hi, Twilight." Faith greeted softly. "Mind if we sit here?"

"O-Oh… I don't know if that's a good idea…" She mentioned oddly.

"Why? You expecting Timber to come here?" I unintentionally slipped out with a bit of an attitude.

"H-Huh? Timber?" She questioned in confusion.

I didn't want to let my attitude get the better of me, so I tried to soothe my voice a bit. "Nothing. If you don't want us here, we can leave."

"Wait." Twilight called out just as I was about to turn back around. "…you don't have any magic, right…?"

"Magic?" I couldn't answer properly for a second as I tried to process the meaning of her question. I had almost entirely forgotten about the kind of "magic" Sunset Shimmer and her friends had. I didn't hang around with them as much as they did with each other, so I still wasn't really used to the idea that that kind of magic was actually real. "You mean like the kind of magic from the Friendship Games? No. Nothing at all."

Twilight lowered her eyes for a short moment before she brought them back up to me. "I guess it should be fine."

"Huh?" I questioned.

She shook her head. "Don't mind me. Go ahead and sit."

She was definitely acting all weird, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask about it. I'd been feeling a lot of emotions, especially with Twilight. I didn't think I was in the position to ask her what had been going on with her.

I took my seat with Faith. Unintentionally, I had taken the seat across Twilight while Faith sat across the spot that Spike had been on. Spike placed his front paws on top of the table and hopped on. "What are _you_ guys going to make?" He asked with a wagging tail.

" _Oh!_ " Faith exclaimed at both the sight and sound of the talking dog in front of her. "I forgot you could talk." She giggled softly. "Um, I don't know. I don't even know how we're supposed to do this."

"Here, I can show you." Twilight leaned over to Faith and began moving around the materials that had already been on top of the table. She gave a few short and simple instructions before she let us figure out the rest on our own.

I had quietly gotten started on my lantern, focusing the majority of my attention on my work especially since Twilight had been right in front of me. At some point, I heard Faith lightly groaning. In response, I turned my head towards her to see what the issue had been. The problem was easy to see when compared to what I had been doing.

She had been working on the base of the lantern, but I could immediately tell it was pretty crooked and easily falling apart. Even if she did manage to barely keep it upright, it would no doubt break apart when she releases it.

"I'm not good with this kind of stuff." She admitted after noticing me take a look at her work. Afterward, she turned her head and looked over mine. "Yours is so clean and cool. How do you do it?"

I simply shrugged my shoulders. "Compared to screwing and nailing wood together, this is a piece of cake. You just have to be patient and stuff."

She pouted her lips and looked over her lantern of dismay for a bit until she returned another glance back at me. "…hey…"

"Hm?" I replied.

"Do you want to, um, make one together?" She asked.

"Huh?" I returned and observed the progress I had been making with the lantern. While it was neat-looking and stable, there was something easily missing about it. I took a quick glance at all the lanterns everyone had been working on and found that they had all added a unique touch to each of them. I didn't have the faintest idea of what I'd do to the one in my hands, so I figured Faith's proposal wasn't exactly a bad idea. "Yeah, sure. You want to do the design?"

"Yeah!" In a matter of seconds, Faith's frown lifted up widely.

"Just give me a few more minutes. I'm almost done building it." I mentioned.

"You two really are in sync, aren't you?"

"Huh?" Faith and I turned towards Twilight and slipped out simultaneously.

"I'm just admiring how well you two work together." She said. "To be honest, I'm a little jealous."

I had no response towards Twilight's sudden and bizarre analysis, and judging by the blank look on Faith's face, I guessed that she didn't have one either. I never really expected someone as smart and talented as Twilight to be jealous of anything.

"Wh-Wh-What do you mean by that?" Faith averted her eyes and began making a stroking motion down her hair with her hands.

"She just likes your friendship and all." Spike answered for his companion.

Twilight briefly looked at him for a moment and then silently nodded.

I didn't look too into Twilight's comment and ignored it for the most part as I worked on finishing the construction of the lantern. Afterward, I passed it on over to Faith for her to express her creativity on using the supplied tools.

"Oh, um…" She looked over the lantern for a bit, carefully turning it around as if she was handling something fragile and expensive. "…what should I draw on it…?" She sounded like she asked herself. A short while later, she stopped the movements with her hands and stared quietly at the lantern, similar to what she did just before asking me if I wanted to work with her on the project. Eventually, she gave an odd and light giggle. "I'm sort of blanking out right now. Maybe we should just draw ourselves on it."

"Ourselves?" I asked, wondering if she'd had the time to do that considering how everyone around us was practically done with theirs.

"It'll be easy-peasy." She replied as if she could read my thoughts. "I'm not going for anything fancy. Just little doodles of us, you know?" She positioned the lantern in a way that she was able to work with and began scribbling at it.

I honestly didn't really care about what she wanted to do to it since I didn't really have the same kind of creativity that she did. Instead, I calmly waited for her to finish as I rested my cheek against my fist. In another few minutes, she was done.

"Ta-da!" She turned over the lantern and allowed me to have a look at the finished result. On the front, she drew extremely simplistic versions of our faces. We were grinning widely like an expressive cartoon character, and the two of us appeared to be obviously enjoying our company. In fact, it kind of reminded me of the pictures we'd take together. I wondered if she had used that for reference.

"It looks good." I returned, almost as if she had been a little girl that was showing me her crayon drawing.

"Okay, everyone! It's time to watch your lanterns fly!" Gloriosa Daisy called gleefully from the docks.

I began getting up from the table we had sat on until I noticed Faith quickly pull the lantern close to her and hastily scribble onto it.

"I thought you finished." I said.

"Just a sec!" Her hand made swift dashes as she seemed to focus on a particular part of the lantern.

Twilight had already left towards the group that was already gathering all together by the docks.

"Uh, Faith…" I said uneasily, my calm demeanor slowly diminishing.

"Okay, done!" She picked up the lantern and held it closely to her chest as she began standing up from the table.

"What did you do?" I asked curiously as I followed her towards the docks.

"N-Nothing! It's a secret!" She quickly responded.

She did not once lessen the grip she had on the lantern. It was like she had seized my land and claimed it for herself. Either way, it was just a floating lantern, and I didn't really care much for it anyway.

We had just made it in time for the candles inside to be lit. Faith stepped forward as she presented it towards the lighter. I simply watched the fire lightly light up the interior of the lantern from behind Faith. It wasn't until at this moment when I noticed the color of the sky had significantly changed compared to when we first started this project.

The sun was just getting ready to dip below the horizon, and the stars above our heads were just beginning to come out. I continued wordlessly watching the stars until I suddenly got the feeling that someone was looking at me. I tore my eyes away from the sky and found Faith gazing back at me with a warm grin. Unless it was somehow a trick or illusion by the slowly darkening sky, I believed a shade of red had been glowing on her cheeks.

The two of us stared motionlessly at each other until Gloriosa's voice rang out from the front of the group.

"Ready? And... go!" She announced.

Faith finally turned around and gently threw the lantern upwards. As I watched it float upwards within the mass of the other lanterns, I felt the unexpected need to find it and see what "change" Faith had made to it just before she kept it away from my sight.

Unfortunately, it disappeared behind a bunch of the other lanterns, and it wasn't until it was fairly far out into the lake where my eyes caught sight of it once again. I could see something miniscule around where Faith had drawn us, but it was too small to see any detail of it. Unless I could magically draw it back to us, there was no way her addition was coming to the light of day. It was now long gone in the sea of growing darkness.

Once the lanterns were completely out of sight, everyone began walking off the docks. However, I had remained standing there for a good while as if I was expecting our lantern to turn right back around.

"It's not coming back, you know." Faith's voice approached me. "Looks like the mystery will never be solved."

Her voice sounded a bit giddy, and it actually seemed like she was poking fun at me.

I finally turned my head away from the sky and looked at my mischievous friend. "You could always tell me, you know."

"Maybe I will. Maybe I won't." She teased, stretching her hands behind her back. "If you're extra good to me, I just might tell you."

I crossed my arms and lightly scoffed. "It was probably something dumb. Did you make me say something stupid on the lantern like 'I love you, Twilight' or something?"

She stared back at me with a dumbfounded face as if I had gotten it right, but just when my eyes began widening in the realization of the supposed truth, she immediately began laughing out loud. "That was a good guess."

"So, did you?" I hurriedly asked as I felt my cheeks flare up.

"Ask me again tomorrow." She raised her feet from her toes and lightly yawned. "I'm a bit sleepy."

I sighed heavily as she walked past me. If she had never made a big deal about it in the first place, I wouldn't have ever been so interested as I, unfortunately, was now.

Once Faith and I showered, we walked back to our tents and decided to call it a day.

* * *

An electronic sound woke me up all of a sudden. It was extremely brief and short, and my instincts told me that it was simply a notification on my phone. As much I leaned against the idea, I decided to push myself up from my bed and reach over to my phone.

My eyes extremely narrowed from the sight of the screen turning on. I was virtually blinded by the brightness before my eyes grew resistant to the light. I had received a text message. I swiped and tapped various times on my screen before I brought up my messages.

I was half-expecting it to be Sunset Shimmer, but I was surprised to find a sticker instead of any words. There had been a cutesy picture of a bunny cautiously peeking around what appeared to be a corner at me. It had been zoomed in on its face, allowing me to clearly see the nervous expression it had.

I stared at my phone for a good while with squinting eyes. I couldn't piece together any reason why I would receive such a message at this time of night, and I didn't even know who it was from. Despite the unfamiliar greeting, I noticed that there had actually been a name on the sender, telling me that I had added this number before.

It took my tired self a good while to read the name, and I was then left rubbing my eyes thoroughly to make sure what I was reading was actually for real.

It had been from Fluttershy.

I didn't know how to respond to this text, seeing how it was only an oddly placed picture on my phone. It especially didn't help that it was from someone I had hardly talked to ever since I was first introduced to her. I figured that she probably sent the message to the wrong person. I didn't want to just leave it unanswered, so I decided to give a straight-forward reply.

 _?_

I texted back a couple of question marks.

A set of dots appeared on my screen. She was typing her response.

 _Oh. Uh, hi…_

I was still clueless. I wanted to ask her the reason why she had sent me the message from earlier, but I didn't want to scare her away. So, I settled with a similar answer.

 _Uh, hi._

She began typing back her response, but I was surprised yet again when I only received another copy of the same picture from before. I stared blankly at it until she began typing again several seconds later.

 _Did I wake you?_ She asked.

 _Kind of, yeah._ I returned a bit bluntly.

 _Sorry. I'll let you go back to sleep._

I wasn't going to let it go at that for a variety of reasons, so I decided to pursue the reason for the first message.

 _It's fine. What's going on? I wasn't expecting a text from you all of a sudden._

 _I'm sorry._ She apologized again. _It's just…out of every one of the girls, I've hardly said a word to you ever since we met. I thought it might be rude if I didn't say anything at all._

And you had to do it through text? I guess her friends were right about her being extremely shy at times.

 _Don't worry about it._ I answered. _Thanks for thinking about my feelings, but you didn't need to do that._

The set of dots appeared on the screen again as usual, but this time, they disappeared out of sight for a moment. They reappeared, and another message popped up on my phone.

 _Actually…I have a favor to ask of you._

Huh? A favor?

 _What is it?_ I inquired.

The dots repeated their prior motion before I received another message.

 _I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go on an early morning nature walk with me tomorrow._

 _I tried asking the others, but they all already had plans or didn't want to get up so early in the morning._

 _I don't really want to go alone, so if you're not doing anything tomorrow morning, do you maybe want to come with me?_

 _If you don't want to, that's completely fine too. I understand._

She sent her request through four separate texts for some reason instead of just putting it all together in one.

To be honest, I _really_ didn't want to get up early in the morning either. As a matter of fact, the time Faith and I had been getting up so far was already too early for me to begin with. Nevertheless, I couldn't imagine how much courage Fluttershy had to build up and break out of her timid shell to ask me for a favor like that.

I couldn't bring myself to say no to someone like her. Besides, I ended up convincing myself that it could be a good time to bond with her and get to know her a little more. I also decided that Faith would probably like something like that.

 _Sure, I'll go._ I answered.

 _Really?!_ She nearly instantly replied back. _Okay, then! Meet me outside my tent at 7 AM. I'm in the Amethyst tent._

 _Alright. I'll set my alarm. But, just in case I don't show up, don't think I bailed on you. I'll more than likely be sleeping. If that's the case, don't hesitate to come and wake me up. I'm in the Opal tent._

I didn't plan on oversleeping, but you can never predict the temptation of sleeping in.

 _Okay. I'll see you tomorrow._

Afterwards, she returned a different sticker of the same bunny jumping for joy.

Finally, I went ahead and set an alarm before I shut off my screen and allowed my hand to carelessly fall back on my bed with the phone beneath my curled fingers. I closed my eyes and was ready to drift off back to slip until I felt an odd vibe.

I hadn't even realized that there had been a small amount of light slipping into the tent from the outside. I had zipped shut the tent flaps before going to sleep, so obviously someone had opened them back up. I turned to my right and locked eyes with Faith's bed.

Her blankets had been pulled aside.

She must have gone to the restroom or something.

I yawned and smacked my lips a bit as I sat up on my bed.

I then decided to make a stop at the restroom myself before I would head back to sleep.

I was still feeling a little disoriented as I walked out of our tent and towards the building where the restrooms were. I was looking forward to heading straight back to sleep, but I had to admit that I wasn't looking forward to waking up super early at all. Nevertheless, it wasn't as bad as waking up for Crystal Prep, so I took that into account. Even so, I didn't know anyone who was willing to voluntarily get up so early while being on break from school.

Well, maybe Fluttershy.

* * *

Nearly dragging my feet across the dirt path, I reached the entrance to the camp bathrooms and began passing by the girls' side until I unexpectedly heard a distinctive voice.

"…I just don't know what to do, Sunset!"

"Huh?" I turned towards the opening where the sound came from.

There were no doors for these public bathrooms. They were completely open, but any look at the inside was covered by a couple of sharp corners past the doorway, similar to locker rooms you'd find at a public pool.

"Why don't you just tell him then? What's the worst that can happen?"

"A lot can happen! And that's exactly what's keeping me back!"

"Faith…?" I mumbled underneath my breath, finding myself much more attentive as I instinctively drew my head closer to the doorway I was prohibited from entering.

"He's your best friend, isn't he? To be quite honest, I don't think I've ever seen anyone as close as you two are. You should tell him. You can't just keep hiding it from him."

"Best friend"? Hold on. Are they talking about me?

"But I'm so scared… I don't want things to end up like they did last time." Her voice nearly whimpered worriedly. "There's no way I can tell him that I like him. The first time nearly crushed me to pieces. I thought Flash would hate me after what I did to him. Not to mention the feeling of my heart being torn to pieces when I found out he was with you. I didn't even get to tell him how I felt. I don't know if I want to do that again. The thought of everything tearing apart scares me to death."

She likes someone? First time? Flash?! Wait a minute. Is she saying that she has a thing for Flash?!

"Stop it. You _can't_ let what _I_ did keep you from doing what your heart wants. _I_ made a horrible mistake and I _totally_ blame myself for what happened. Don't let what _I_ did stop you from following your heart. I can tell you know it's something you need to do, but you need to let go of the negative thoughts in your head. Chase will understand. I haven't known him for as long as you have, but I can tell he's a good guy. There's no way he'll hate you for the way you feel."

There was a long silence after, and with the silence, I was able to think for myself. I couldn't stop wondering what the heck they had been talking about, and for some reason, I felt a mixture of emotions rise up all at once.

First, what exactly was it that Faith was talking about, and why was she talking about it to someone else like this? I didn't understand. Usually, she always came to me when she needed someone to talk to about her problems. She'd even get into topics that were best left between girls, but despite all that, she still talked to me because she trusted me. What exactly happened that led her to go to someone else? Did I do something to her? Did I say something that made her feel uncomfortable? Is she…losing her trust in me?

If I understood the private conversation correctly, I believed it was clear that Flash was on her mind. If she started liking him again, then why couldn't she tell me about it? Hate her for the way she feels? What kind of trash is that? What made her think like that, to begin with? Why did she feel like she had to come to someone else instead of me? I want to know!

What? Did she think I'd be jealous or something? Did she think that if she started dating Flash that we wouldn't hang out like we usually would anymore?

The more I thought about it, the more I began pondering about it myself.

If Faith _did_ date Flash, and we stopped seeing each other as often because of it, I wasn't sure what I'd do or how I'd feel.

I had been pushing this into the closet of my mind for some time now already, but I couldn't help but feel like Twilight was avoiding me for some reason. After my time with her in Crystal Prep, it honestly hurt to see things like that. I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt somehow. But, it was hard to deny how she seemed a lot more interested into talking with the camp guide we just met a couple of days ago than the friend that's tried to stick with her during her years in Crystal Prep.

Now, similar thoughts began swirling in my head in regards to Faith.

What are you so afraid of, Faith? Why me? Did I do something to you? You wanted to tell me something earlier today, but why did you feel so scared to tell me? Did I somehow lose your trust? Faith…

I found myself leaning against the wall right next to the doorway. If the two girls talking inside walked out and managed to find me, I'd be in big trouble, but I was thinking too intensively about baseless theories to care about that.

"I won't give up, Sunset." I heard her say inside. "It's going to be really hard, but I'll try." There were a few sniffles coming from inside, and soon after, I heard what sounded like her voice breaking. "I just…really hope…Chase will—"

"Star Chaser?" I heard another voice intervene, causing a sharp gasp to bellow out from me.

At the same exact time, the voices I had been listening to inside the restroom ceased immediately. They had to have heard whoever called me out. This is bad…

I turned to the person responsible and found that it couldn't have been anyone worse for the occasion.

"Uh, hey, Flash." I tried to say as softly as I could in hopes that the girls wouldn't hear me.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" He asked. "The dude I'm rooming with snores crazy loud."

"Oh?" He looked like he was heading to the restroom, so I began walking to our side of the building, hoping that he wouldn't figure out or question what I had been doing standing around near the girls' side in the first place. "Sorry to hear that."

He followed me inside, where we each did our own thing momentarily.

* * *

I remained standing in front of the sink with the water running out endlessly. I had already finished washing my hands, but I couldn't stop thinking about what had been going on just a short while ago. I couldn't hear anything from the other side anymore, and I wasn't sure if it was due to the conversation completely coming to an end or if the wall between us completely blocked any noise.

I didn't want to be in this stupid restroom anymore, but I suddenly felt fear rise up my spine. I was scared that if I walked out, they'd be waiting out there and accuse me of eavesdropping or something. To be honest, it sounded _really_ unlikely, but I still couldn't bear the thought of it happening. I figured if I waited for Flash to walk out with him, I'd seem a lot less suspicious _if_ they were out there.

I sighed heavily as the sound of water raining down the drain continuously rung in my ears. After a moment, I lifted my head up towards the mirror and wordlessly stared at myself for what felt like a long time. Finally, I heard a loud flush before the stall door behind me opened up.

"Gah… I wonder if it was the sauce or something…" He mentioned, holding a hand to his stomach. He stepped over to the sink next to me and proceeded to wash his hands while humming some kind of tune softly.

He was definitely a little weird, but he didn't seem like anyone that would intentionally want to hurt someone else. I guess I can see why Faith would like him. He's a little weird just like her. Still, I didn't expect her to like him again all of a sudden after what happened. Maybe the feelings for him never went away, to begin with, and now that all the drama from CHS was finally behind her, she could finally "follow her heart". But, why couldn't she tell me?

"Did the food from today get to you too? I've got some medicine that can help." He noticed me quietly eyeing the water running down the drain.

I shook my head and actually felt the need to laugh. Here I was thinking so seriously about something and he thinks I've got a stomachache. He's considerate. I'll give him that. Maybe Faith liking him isn't such a bad idea…

"I'm good. Thanks." I finally shut off the water and dried off any moisture on my hands.

I released a sigh of relief when I walked out and didn't notice Faith or Sunset hanging around outside. I wasn't sure if they were still inside the building, but I wasn't sticking around to find out. I ended up walking with Flash all the way to the housing grounds where we went our separate ways to our assigned tents.

I hadn't even realized about something until I was right in front of our tent. What if Faith was waiting for me inside? Would she want to know why I was outside the restroom building? No, that's stupid. If she's in there, maybe she's already asleep.

I swiftly shook my head and forced myself to walk in. To both my surprise and some kind of relief, her bed was still empty. I simply sat on the side of my bed, but I found that I was no longer in the mood to fall straight back to sleep. In fact, I was wide awake for the most part.

Thinking to myself for a short moment, I felt the strong urge to talk to someone about what just happened. However, that in of itself was a major problem. I usually told everything to Faith, but in this particular instance, I obviously couldn't.

I turned my head to the nightstand and found my phone sitting there. I grabbed it and swiped, looking at my contact list. The next person I could probably say something to was Sunset, but for the same reason with Faith, that was impossible.

I then looked at my recent messages. There _was_ Fluttershy. But, no. That was also incredibly dumb. We were barely just getting to know each other. I don't think she'd be able to handle me spilling my worries to her out of nowhere.

I continued scrolling through my fairly short contact list, every name I came across being reasonably unfit for the job. Finally, I stopped at a particular name. A girl I hadn't really spoken to for a good while now.

Sunny Flare.

I stared at the name for a few seconds until I practically slapped my forehead with my hand. Am I really considering telling Sunny Flare about this? The same girl who previously fought with Faith because Faith refused the idea of her dating me? Would she even understand me?

I thought seriously for a long moment.

She _did_ confide in me at the end of the Friendship Games. She isn't all bad. If there's a chance she'll be able to give me some kind of advice on how to feel or what to do, I want to take it.

I tapped her name and went on to type her a message.

 _Are you up?_ I asked.

However, I hesitantly held my thumb over the send button. It wasn't until I took in a deep breath and virtually forced my thumb to press down. Once the notification appeared that the message had been sent, I set the phone down by my side on the bed. I covered my face with my hands and leaned over slightly.

Is it possible that I'm just making a big deal over nothing? Even if I was, why would I be? After all, I never really concerned myself with anything like this…

I heard buzzing coming from my bed. I had only expected it to sound once, but it continued on as if I was either receiving a phone call or a bunch of texts all at once. I brought the screen towards me and found that it had been none of the above. Sunny Flare was reaching out back to me, but it was…a video call?!

I was afraid of what was in store the moment I'd answer it, but I figured it'd be worse if I just let it go. I cautiously accepted the call and allowed the video to load up on my screen. In the next moment, I saw a pair of eyebrows drawn together, narrowed lips, and glaring eyes that appeared to be fixated right at _me_. I felt like I was just about to quickly end the call until the girl on the other side began speaking in a tone of frustration.

" _Now_ , you call me huh?! Who do you think you are?! You expect me to come crawling to you or something?!"

Yeah. Talking to her was probably a huge mistake…

"I woke you. Didn't I?" I answered in an unenthusiastic tone.

"No, you didn't. I just can't believe it took you this long to say something!"

Super unwilling to get into an argument at this time of night, I went on ahead and apologized, even if I shouldn't have. "Look, I'm sorry. I've just been…busy."

"Uh-huh, sure." She crossed her arms with a clear look of skepticism on her face. "Forget all that. I'm over it. What are you doing?"

"I'm kind of at a camp." I told her.

"A camp? Blegh." She briefly stuck out her tongue in disgust. "Maybe you really weren't kidding about being busy."

Now that the "argument" was over, I was able to have a comfortable look at her, and it didn't even occur to me how different she looked compared to when I'd see her at Crystal Prep. Instead of her usual uniform, she wore a white T-shirt and what seemed to be a pair of sleeping short shorts. It was actually similar to her gym uniform, but it was a lot less…athletic. Besides her bedwear attire, a white towel hung around her neck, and she used it to occasionally pat-dry her hair.

"…I should probably let you go…" I said, deciding that starting this conversation was a mistake.

"What!?" Her face lurched forward to the camera. "So, that's how it's going to be, huh? Fine, then. I don't care. _Bye_."

"Could you calm down for a freaking second? _Geez_." I faced the screen angrily. "What do you want from me?"

"You can at least stay and chat for a while…" She averted her eyes and lightly puffed out her cheeks. "I didn't think 'friends' just say hi to each other and leave it at that for another few months."

I squeezed the spot between my eyes with my fingers in frustration and silently exhaled a heavy breath.

"Yeah. Speaking of 'friends', that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about in the first place…" I responded cautiously. "…I wasn't sure who else to turn to."

"Oh?" It sounded like her interest had peaked. "I guess you're not so bad after all. So, what's going on?"

She didn't seem like she was all that interested in wanting to know how I had been doing, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and believed it was just the way she was.

"To tell you the truth, I wanted to…um…well…hear your thoughts about something." I noticed her position herself a little closer to the camera, but she remained silent, waiting to hear what I had in store for her. "You see…something's bugging me really bad right now, and…"

I suddenly stopped myself and looked up from my phone.

"What?" Sunny Flare asked as if she had been furiously waiting for me to spill the beans.

An intimidating thought crossed my mind, so I quickly jumped off my bed and poked my head outside of the tent. There was no one in sight, so I pulled myself back inside and brought the flaps of the tent closer together while leaving them unzipped.

I heard a subtle groan or growl from the speakers on my phone.

"Sorry." I apologized. "Just had to make sure of something. Anyway…I…"

I stopped myself again once I realized what I was just about to tell Sunny Flare. I was on the verge of telling her something that I'm intentionally keeping from Faith. She and Faith weren't exactly the best of friends. Could Sunny Flare possibly tell Faith everything out of spite? _Should_ I trust her not to?

"Ughh. What is it now?" She asked impatiently.

"On second thought…I don't know if I should tell you." I mentioned bluntly.

" _What?_ Why?" She nearly demanded with an offended look on her face.

"It's about Faith. And I don't know if I can trust you to keep it a secret."

" _Come on_. Who do you think I am? I'm not going to go and blab about it to everyone, you know."

My eyelids lowered in response. I wasn't quite willing to believe her based on her word. "Last time you two talked to each other, you got in a fight that you didn't need to get into. Is it really so surprising that I'd think twice about telling you something pretty personal?"

"You called _me_ , jerk. What do you want from me?"

Something that I know that'll keep you from telling anyone else about it, that's for sure.

"Well, if you can somehow prove that you'll keep what I tell you a secret, that'd be great. I don't know. Maybe give me something you don't want anyone else to know about? Like a secret of your own?"

"Are you for real?" She asked a bit bitterly.

"It's not like I _want_ this." I explained. "It'd just make me feel a lot better trusting you."

She sighed heavily and averted her eyes to the side. She remained silent as if she was seriously considering my offer. Meanwhile, I noticed her thumb and index finger grab a spot of her shirt and nervously massage the area.

"Fine." She surprisingly agreed. "I'll do it."

I decided to keep my mouth shut and wait to see if she'd start telling me some kind of deep or embarrassing secret. However, what she did next shocked me to no end. Words couldn't describe it, and my mind had completely blanked out until I realized her part of the deal had already been kept. I didn't think I needed confirmation on how embarrassing it was for her, based on how she turned her head away from me and blushed heavily from it. I had to be honest when I never expected such a thing as that coming from Sunny Flare out of all people.

"Now, hurry up and tell me before I die of embarrassment!" She demanded.

"R-Right…" I awkwardly answered and cleared my throat, attempting to forget what just happened so I could fulfill my part of the deal properly. "Well, I'm…kind of scared right now."

"Scared?" Her voice seemed to calm down a bit. "Of what?"

"Well, I overheard Faith talking with another friend of mine about something serious a while ago. Apparently, she likes this guy I know, and what's really bugging me is, for some reason, she couldn't tell me. The thing is, I'm always the one who hears her out when it comes to practically anything. But, this time, she had to go and feel like she needed to tell someone else. I don't get it all. I don't even get why I'm getting all upset over it. My emotions are a mess right now. I don't understand why."

"Are you serious?" Sunny responded with. " _That's_ what you were afraid of telling me? Ugh! That so wasn't worth it!"

"Sunny!" My hands clenched as I angrily faced her, extremely unwilling to deal with her attitude during a time like this.

It appeared as if she noticed how serious I was about the talk since she immediately backed off. "S-Sorry!" She exclaimed out an apology and slightly turned away. "Look. I'm not good with this stuff, alright? So, I'll try to…listen." She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled it out. "Alright. So, is it jealousy you're feeling?"

"Jealousy?" I asked cluelessly about.

She nodded. "You pretty much said that she went to someone else but you. Are you feeling angry because she didn't come to you instead like you said she normally does?"

"I don't know…" I turned my eyes away from the screen. "Maybe… After all, there's this other girl that I kind of have a thing for. She sort of told me that she wanted to get to know me better, but for the entire time at camp here, I've been seeing her with someone else she just met. I don't want to be _that_ guy, but I can't help but feel angry about it all, you know? Now, it feels like something's going on with Faith too. It's just freaking ticking me off."

"Hmph." I heard from her end. "It sounds like something I can really relate to." It sounded like she was trying to give me a bitter hint, but in order to keep my sanity, I decided to ignore it for now. "I don't know about your other 'lady friend' there, but if you ask me, you should talk to Faith about it."

"'Talk to Faith'?" I repeated, fairly surprised by her suggestion.

"Well, what else can you do it about it? If it _really_ bothers you, are you just going to ignore it forever? Look at me. I told you all those stupid things back at the Friendship Games and everything seems okay…for the most part. Anyway, I don't have any regrets. At least we aren't really strangers to each other anymore like we were before. In fact, I'm surprised you actually came to talk to me about something like this. I guess you can say…it makes me a little happy to be needed." Her voice unexpectedly softened, but she shook her head and snapped out of it soon after. "Point is: you shouldn't keep something like this to yourself, especially if it involves her. You guys have been friends forever. It almost makes me sick, actually."

"But, I can't tell her…" I replied. "I can't tell her that I overheard something she meant to keep private. In fact, I've never even listened in onto something like that before. I wouldn't have to. She'd just tell me…"

"If she's really your best friend, then you'll tell her." Sunny stated frankly. "And don't worry, I'm not trying to 'ruin your relationship' or whatever. I'm being serious. The earlier you tell her, the better. Otherwise, if she finds out months down the line, things are just going to be even more awkward than they would be right now. You should just get it over with."

She had a point. I couldn't deny that. Now that I think about it, even if something like this was hardly worth worrying about, it wouldn't feel right keeping it from the one person I could rely on when it came to anything.

"Yeah… I guess you're right." I said and then sighed. "I just hope this all blows over soon. I'm on break. I don't need things like this stressing me out."

"Let's hang out sometime. Seriously." Sunny offered. "I promise I won't bug you about things. Well, I'll try not to."

I felt like I needed to repay her back after taking the time to listen to me like this, not to mention that I told her we could be friends in the first place. However, I didn't know when I could take some time to hang out with her as she wanted. I'm pretty sure she'd prefer if Faith didn't tag along, lest they got into an argument or something.

Either way, I nodded. "We'll see about that soon." I took a glance at the corner of my phone and noticed the time. "It's pretty late, plus I have to get up early tomorrow…"

"I guess this is goodbye for now then?" She mentioned oddly. "Well, good night, I guess."

Before she could end the call, I called out to her. "Hey, Sunny."

"Hm?" She answered back.

"Thanks for listening to me. I really appreciate it. Really." I told her.

"Yeah. Thanks for letting me listen." She returned. "I was pretty bored before you messaged me anyway."

"I'll try looking into finding some time to hang out with you. I'll treat you to something for taking the time to hear me out and stuff."

"Oh? Is that a date I hear?" Before I could give her a response, she chucked lightly. "I'm just kidding. I know you don't want to date me. Oh, but do me a favor, will you?"

"What is it?"

"Forget about earlier, okay?" Her face visibly grew flushed. "It's going to feel weird now that you…"

"You didn't need to remind me…" I told her. "It was actually already out of my head until you went and brought it up again."

"Oh, whatever!" She heatedly responded. "Talk to you later, kay?"

"Yeah, night."

She ended the call, allowing me to release the grip on my phone and let it slip and fall into my blankets. I sighed heavily and lightly massaged my face. I almost couldn't believe I had spent all that time talking to Sunny Flare. Either way, I actually didn't regret it. I felt as if she and I grew a little closer from it. After all, she seems so much more different than the way I used to see her back at Crystal Prep. It seems like there's a lot more to her than meets the eye.

Honestly, I felt a lot better, but I was still feeling a little awake. Nevertheless, I decided to start slipping into my covers to try to get some sleep until I heard the front flaps of the tent rustle. I turned my head in the direction of them to find someone in the middle of slipping through them. Eventually, she noticed that she had been spotted and found herself staring back at me.

"Oh. Uhm. Hi. Did I…wake you?"

Sunny's words crossed my mind. I did indeed already began to feel a bit awkward around Faith knowing what I did. Despite that, I decided to act as normal as I possibly could. For now, at least.

"No, not really." I answered.

"Sorry." She apologized and zipped closed the tent flaps. Then, she made her way over to her bed. "Goodnight…"

"Night." I repeated, lying back down on my bed and tossing the covers over me.

To be honest, it was definitely the weirdest way we've ended the day together, but there was nothing I could really do about it. She hardly made a peep after settling herself in her bed, and everything was soon completely still and quiet.

In fact, it was almost as if she wasn't here beside me anymore.


	4. Awakening

I found myself waking up on my own which possibly meant a couple of things.

One: I actually somehow woke up before my alarm did.

Two: I actually slept through my alarm.

Two was usually always a bad and reoccuring thing for me.

In fact, the first thing I did was reach for my phone in a slight panic, but once I saw the time on my screen, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. It was about ten minutes before my alarm would go off. Nevertheless, I could feel the tempting offer of sleeping a little more until my alarm would eventually wake me, but I know from experience that it was usually better to stay awake. After all, ten minutes wouldn't be worth the chance of missing out on a promise I made.

As tired as I was, I went ahead and shut off the alarm so I wouldn't have it annoy me later on. Then, I sat up on my bed and rubbed my eyes lightly. At that moment, a particular person came to mind, causing me to turn my head to my right and find her sleeping peacefully in her bed.

Memories of the events from last night began to hit me, and for a second, I almost wanted to believe that they had never happened. Although, I was feeling a little better, so what I needed was probably sleep. Even so, _more_ sleep would definitely do me good.

I managed to get out of bed and get ready. I remembered that I had originally wanted to see if Faith wanted to come along. However, looking at her resting and undisturbed face, I didn't want to bother her. Besides, I was worried that I'd still feel a little awkward around her, and judging from the fact that there was something she was keeping from me, she might feel the same as well.

It was a short walk over to the Amethyst tent, and I managed to catch Fluttershy slowly glancing around as she stood outside her tent. My eyes still felt annoyingly heavy, but I forced myself to suck it up and walk over to her.

"Hey." I greeted tiredly.

"Oh! H-Hi." She answered a bit shakily.

I don't know how, but I guess I startled her.

"I don't really know what you do on a nature walk, so you take the lead on this one." I suggested. "I'll just be right behind you."

Her nerves seemed to ease a little when she noticed how much my energy levels were lacking. To my unnoticeable surprise, she leaned in forward slightly with a worried look on her face. "Did you get enough sleep last night? You look really tired."

"I'm not really a morning person, to be honest." I admitted.

"Oh. Maybe I shouldn't have asked you to come with me…" She turned her head away in shame.

"Don't worry about it." I assured. "Why don't we get moving? I feel a lot sleepier when I'm not doing anything."

"Oh, okay…" She returned softly and turned in the direction towards a particular path. "Um. If you don't mind, follow me."

Fluttershy led me through a noticeable trail into the woods, its sides topped off by a multitude of trees. It was almost as if she knew the area, but at the same time, it was a little weird walking through when there wasn't anyone else in sight. It may have been due to the fact that it was early morning, or it just wasn't a popular thing to do, to begin with.

The two of us remained quiet for the most part, and I wasn't sure if that was really a good or bad thing. Personally, I didn't speak much because I was too tired to do so. In fact, the most I'd do is take a glance or two at the wilderness around us. However, most of the time, I was witnessing Fluttershy's reaction to the area around her. Based on the delighted yet graceful expression on her face, I believed it was safe to guess that silence between us was completely okay.

At one point, we finally decided to take a break and have a seat on a bench that nearly looked to be a part of a huge tree behind it. Chirping from the residual birds, along with the sound and feel of the soft breeze passing by, made it all the more suitable to fall asleep to. My eyes were just about to seal shut until I heard Fluttershy speak.

"Nature's just wonderful, isn't it?"

"Hm? Oh. Yeah." I answered. If there was a bed out here, I wouldn't mind knocking right out.

"Do you do anything like this often, Chase?" She asked me.

"No, not really." I slightly hunched forward and rested my cheek on top of my fist. "Actually, now that I think about it, this might be the first time I've ever done something like this. I'm usually always inside somewhere."

"How do you like your time here so far?"

"It's okay, I guess." I answered briefly.

There was a short pause before she spoke once again. "I'm sorry. I'm not asking too many questions, am I?"

"Huh?" I turned to her and lifted up my head. "Oh. No. If you're worried about me being not talkative, it's just because, well, you know." I didn't really want to remind her about how tired I was, or I was afraid that she'd start feeling guilty about having me up this early.

She managed to nod back. "If I'm bothering you, please let me know. I'm not the best when it comes to…talking to others. In fact, a few years back, I used to be so much shyer. But, with the help of my friends, I'm slowly learning to be better when it comes to socializing. I'll never be as good as Pinkie Pie though. I don't know how she does it." She gave a light shake of her head.

"If you ask me, you're doing pretty great already." I told her, noticing the normal conversation she had been making.

"You really think so?" She inquired.

"You looked a bit nervous before we left, but you seem a lot calmer now. Maybe being out here helped."

"Oh, I see." She turned her eyes to the hands that were at the hem of her skirt. She remained quiet for a moment before she turned and faced me again. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Hm?"

"Um. What do you think about Gaea Everfree? Do you think she's real?" She asked with genuine worry in her eyes.

I almost couldn't believe that that story actually got to some people.

"Total nonsense." I reprised with confidence. "If that's really concerning you, then you have nothing to worry about."

"What makes you think that?" She wondered.

"Faith was kind of worrying about the same thing. I told her that it wouldn't make sense. Why would Timber tell us a story about some horrid magical creature that lives in this very camp? If she was _really_ real, why would he tell _everyone_ camping out here that she's practically on the loose? That's pretty much like saying that people have up and disappeared in this very camp without a trace. It wouldn't look so good on the camp in the end. It's another story with the illusion of being real so it gets a few scares out of people. These kinds of stories probably would have shaken me back a few years ago, but after telling myself how they wouldn't make any sense pretty much made me immune."

"O-Oh…! Is that so…?" Fluttershy returned and slowly lifted her head up towards a few birds standing atop a branch above us. "I see. I suppose that _does_ make me feel a little less scared." Her lips closed for a moment, and the two of us sat in silence for a short moment before her lips opened once again. "There's something else I'm curious about, but I completely understand if you don't feel comfortable about talking about it."

"What's up?" I wondered.

"I guess I just wanted to know a little more about you and Faith…" She tapped her fingers lightly on the bench we sat on. "You two are always together, so I have to ask… Are you just really close friends, or is there something special going on between you two…?"

Here we go…

"We're just close friends, Fluttershy." I managed to confirm calmly, possibly due to the fact that I was too tired to be expressive about it. "If you want to know a fun fact about me, she was practically the only girl I ever talked to up until the Friendship Games. Somehow, I ended up making friends with all of you and _then_ some." I referred, thinking about the few girls from Crystal Prep. "I mean…I already knew Twilight, but before the Games, she and I hardly talked. She was always too focused on her research and stuff."

"Oh, right. I remember." Fluttershy positioned her hands between her legs as she looked at me. "That was one of the reasons why she transferred to Canterlot High. She was interested in learning about the kind of friendship we had. Was that also why you transferred too?"

I shook my head. "Nah. I just needed to get out of Crystal Prep. I didn't really feel happy there. Faith was actually the only person who made going there tolerable."

"I see…" Fluttershy remained silent for a moment before she brought up a surprising proposal. "Well, if it's okay with you, I look forward to being good friends with you and Faith. I don't think there's really much I can do, but if you ever need help with something like animals, I'll be glad to do whatever I can. After all, I feel like I need to thank you for coming with me on this nature walk so early in the morning. I can tell that you woke up when you really didn't want to."

"I'm not one to break my promises…" I told her. "Anyways, you don't have to do anything in return. I didn't come here expecting that."

She shook her head. "We're friends now, and that's what friends do, right?" For the first time during this early morning, she smiled brightly as if any anxiety she previously felt melted away by the lifting sun's rays. She extended a hand out towards me and had me staring blankly at it for a few seconds. "It's a pleasure to truly officially meet you, Star Chaser!"

I didn't fully understand what she meant by that. I thought back to when we had first "formally" met and remembered that there actually wasn't much to remember about her in the first place. At the time, she was so withdrawn that she wasn't even able to introduce herself. I could only assume that now since she was more in her "zone", she felt a lot more comfortable when it came to things like this.

"Yeah… You too, Fluttershy." I accepted her hand and shook it.

Despite her enthusiasm, it wasn't a surprise when her handshake wasn't a firm one. It was gentle, almost as if _she_ didn't want to break any part of my hand.

She resumed smiling once we pulled our hands apart.

"Now, then. Would you like to return to camp? You look like you could use a nap." She offered.

"More like an eight-hour nap…" I mentioned tiredly.

She returned a soft giggle and began leading me on the path towards camp.

* * *

By the time we returned to the tents, we surprisingly came across Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and this sparked conversation between the four of us.

"Applejack? Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy questioned them as her eyes widened a bit at the sight of them.

"Mornin'!" Applejack greeted and then noticed me standing nearby. "Wasn't expectin' to see you two together."

"We just came back from a really relaxing nature walk." Fluttershy mentioned. "I didn't know you two were going to be up this early. You could have gone with us."

"We were actually just gonna get an early start on fixing the docks. It's gotta be done some time, you know?"

"I'm hoping we can get it finished _today_." Rainbow Dash emphasized. "Do you know how many camp activities we've been missing out because we don't have a dock?! It's already been three days! We don't have all break. We're only here for a week!"

"Speaking of fixing the dock. You two wanna give us a hand?" Applejack asked.

"Sure!" Fluttershy clasped her hands together and replied cheerfully.

I had only been listening to the words that came out of their months that I didn't realize they had been looking at me for an answer. I knew that they had asked about the dock, but for some reason, I felt like I could slip out of working and go back to sleep without saying a word.

"I…uh…actually was planning on going back to sleep." I answered.

"Sleep?!" Rainbow seemed to find my answer deeply offensive. "You're only here for a week! You can't just sleep through it all!"

"Chill out. I'll wake back up at noon or something." I calmly responded.

"He's already helped us do so much. He deserves a break, don't you think?" Fluttershy surprisingly came to my defense.

"But…" Rainbow crossed her arms, coming up short with something to argue back.

"Look, if you're still working on the dock by the time I wake back up, I'll come help, alright? But, unless you want me getting in the way and being slow because I'm running on fumes, I'm heading back to my tent."

I finally turned around, unwilling to negotiate the matter any further. I began stepping towards the Opal tent, but it honestly felt more like I was dragging my feet across the dirt. At this point, I didn't care what I did. I just wanted to climb into my bed and knock right out.

I slipped my fingers between the closed flaps of the tent and pulled one side open. I lazily ducked and poked my head inside, coming across a figure that had been standing completely still. My eyes lifted upwards to find a girl staring back at me like a deer in the headlights. We remained staring at each other for what felt like a long while before she finally belted out a stammering command.

"C-C-Close the tent flaps, d-dummy!"

Having no words to spare, I silently pulled my head back out from inside the tent and did just as she told. For good measure, I even did her the favor of pulling the zipper all the way down until it was touching the ground.

Afterwards, as if my brain had just been flashed by some kind of an extremely bright light, I almost blankly and cluelessly began walking back to where I had last been with Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack.

"Huh? What are you doing back?" Rainbow Dash questioned a bit bitterly. "I thought you were going to bed."

"I can't." I vaguely responded.

"What?" She inquired with her eyebrow cocking from confusion.

"I can't go to bed." I answered more clearly while still being heavily vague.

None of them had no clue to what I had just witnessed, so the three of them just looked at each other oddly.

" _Ohhkay…_ " Rainbow decided to leave the topic alone. "So, I guess that means you'll be helping us then?"

I remained utterly silent, feeling no urge to say any more.

"Great!" Rainbow took my silence for a yes. "Come on! We have to go get the wood and tools!"

She went ahead and took off, but the other two girls decided to hang back a bit and keep their eyes on me for a moment.

"Are you doin' alright there, partner?" Applejack slowly began reaching out a hand towards me in worry.

It felt like I had been zoning out as I caught myself staring endlessly in the direction Rainbow Dash had left. My eyes still felt heavy, but at the same time, I felt wide awake. "Yeah. I'm fine." I answered briefly and began walking ahead to help Rainbow Dash with whatever she needed my help with.

* * *

I couldn't really think completely straight when it came to helping with the docks. I'd sometimes find myself walking aimlessly for a short while when carrying back supplies like planks of woods. To put it simply, it sort of felt like I was a robot. However, if there was a good thing that came out of what I saw, at _least_ it distracted me from being tired.

I placed planks of wood at the end of the dock near the new frame we managed to replace. I went ahead and got started on nailing wood over this new frame while Applejack replaced the broken pieces over at the center of the dock. As for the other girls, Fluttershy was tying a rope around the perimeter to serve as the railing. Rainbow Dash went ahead and brought us supplies while we worked, and she did it rather quickly.

I began reaching into the box of nails I had but found there was nothing to grab inside. I turned my head toward this seemingly empty box to make sure that this was the case and not just a few loose nails hiding somewhere. It turned out that my supply had run dry, and this caused me to call out to Rainbow Dash for some more nails.

"Rainbow. Can you bring me some more nails?" I asked.

"Sure thing!" She replied.

As she jogged on ahead to work on my request, I decided to adjust the next few planks I would be nailing while I waited. When I heard the sound of her feet return to the solid flooring of the dock, I turned back around.

"Nails coming right up!" She announced. She made a small increase in the pace her feet were going, but all of a sudden, she was passing me before I even knew it. "Whoa!" She came to a screeching stop, but the momentum from her previous miraculous burst of speed caused her to slightly lunge forward a moment longer. The tip of her shoes made contact with the piles of planks I had set next to me. No rope had been tied around the area I had been working in, so she was practically diving headfirst into the water.

I grabbed for the first thing I could see and forcibly pulled her back with her wrist. She fell back and seemed to gasp for any air that she had lost in the moment. At the same time, she continued to stare out with fully widened eyes as if she had nearly lost her life.

"What was _that_?" I asked, never having witnessed anything like that before. In fact, it reminded me of a particular something from the other day.

"I-It's my super speed! B-but why did it…?" She explained vaguely.

"Super speed?" I questioned confusingly.

"Rainbow Dash! Are you okay?" Fluttershy quickly asked as she worriedly hurried up to us.

"I-I'm fine!" She responded with a noticeable sound of frustration building up in her voice. "I wasn't even running that fast!"

"Careful, Rainbow." Applejack approached us last. "You nearly ran off the dock!"

"It's not my fault!" She returned back. "Same goes for you. You might want to keep an eye on your magic. You make just break this entire dock in half if you don't."

Applejack's eyes shot open, and then she brought up her hands to her face to silently observe them.

"Magic? What are you talking about? What's going on?" I asked, feeling clearly out of the loop.

"You were there, weren't you?" Applejack told me. "When we were rock climbin'. Remember how I pulled Rarity all the way up, and how she pushed me into the water with some weird diamond thing? Every one of us has been getting' some kind of 'new magic', and it turns out that each of us has somethin' besides Sunset Shimmer and Twilight. You just had a glimpse of it for yourself; Rainbow can move ridiculously fast, Fluttershy can talk to animals, and Pinkie can _explode_ things."

It took me a moment to process what she had been telling me, but it didn't take _as_ long as it normally would since I had witnessed them do all sorts of crazy things back at the Friendship Games. "Wait, really? Does this have something to do with what happened at the Friendship Games?"

"I-I guess?" Applejack shrugged cluelessly. "But none of us knows what's causing it. All we know is that bein' in camp is givin' us these 'powers' for some reason."

"Ugh." Rainbow Dash rubbed her bottom as she stood back up. "I would _totally_ by hyped up about it if I could control it whenever I want, but things are gonna turn out to be a problem fast if _that_ keeps happening."

"…maybe just stick to walking for now." I advised.

There was personally no real point in me questioning it or trying to get to the root of it. All I could really do was just hope that nothing _bad_ came out of it and just let things happen.

Afterwards, we continued working for a while longer. Every now and then, I'd turn and find Rainbow Dash taking my advice. She no longer ran or even jogged. In fact, at times, I'd see her slowly tiptoeing her way around the area. Because of this, I decided to go and get my own supplies when I needed them.

Besides the incident with Rainbow Dash, I hadn't really taken a break from work, so I stopped by the restrooms for a bit, along with the cafeteria to get a drink of water. As I made my way back with three unopened bottles of water, I noticed a couple of familiar friends speaking with one another. I stopped and had a glance to find Faith and Flash having what appeared to be an enjoyable conversation with each other. I could only assume that it was the 'catching up' that Flash had mentioned earlier before. I felt an unusual need to sigh and turned my head away as I set my sights back to working on the dumb dock.

I returned back and was surprised to see two new characters lending a hand to us. At least one of them was. Pinkie Pie was tying rope at the end of the dock where I had been working on. I assumed that she heard about what happened, so she was eagerly attempting a fix to prevent such a close call from happening again. On the other hand, Rarity had set up a foldable chair on the safe part of the platform. However, she was sewing some kind of fabric instead of doing something with the dock itself.

"Here." I offered the water I had to Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack. Each of them thanked me as I turned to face the newcomers. "Sorry. I didn't know you two were here." I apologized.

"No need to apologize, darling." Rarity answered as she continued to keep her focus on the fabric.

"If I'm thirsty, there's a whole bunch of water right here!" Pinkie gestured towards the lake of water we had been building over.

"Uh-huh…" I returned, taking into consideration how Pinkie's 'magic' would directly affect our project. I didn't know how it worked, but as long as she was just tying the rope, maybe it would turn out okay and not explode?

Before I could ask for details about her "exploding powers", I felt a soft finger tap my shoulder. I turned around to see who it was and nearly jumped when it was Faith standing behind me. She had been holding her arms behind her back, and she obviously looked away in embarrassment, due to the heat lingering on her cheeks. It was a no-brainer that was happened earlier this morning was still in her mind.

"Hey…" She said.

"Hey…" I answered in a similar fashion, not entirely sure what had been on her mind. I couldn't tell if there was something that she wanted to tell me. Nothing had come out of her mouth for a moment I couldn't last handling with silence, so I finally spoke up. "Sorry about earlier, I didn't know that you were—"

She swiftly shook her head with closed eyes. "D-Don't bring it up… Anyways, um, I was wondering if you, mm, well if you aren't too busy with the dock, do you…maybe want to do something together?"

"What do you mean?" I asked since I only had a basic grasp of her request.

"Like, do you want to do something else together? Something in the camp that we haven't done yet? I'll let you choose since you let me rock climb last time."

Oh. So, she wanted to do some other kind of activity offered here at camp. I had been working with the others on the dock for a good while, so I believed I _did_ deserve some kind of break. Then again, we're all _supposed_ to be on break in the first place.

"Hey, will you guys be good if I take off?" I asked.

Applejack leaned back and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "Not much work to do left. We'll be fine. Thanks a lot for your help today."

"Oh, about Pinkie…" I mentioned. "She won't…blow up the dock, will she?" I nearly whispered.

Applejack shook her head. "As long as she doesn't throw anything, I think we should be fine."

I nodded my head and turned over to Rainbow. "Try not to fall off into the water anymore, alright?"

"Oh, come on!" She groaned, appearing clearly upset that I had brought it up in the first place.

Finally, I turned over to Faith. "Let's go. Maybe we can try out some archery or something."

She returned a small nod and proceeded to follow me as I left the lakeside area.

* * *

Faith and I had previous experience with archery from Crystal Prep, but we weren't exactly masters at the practice. For us, it was more of a game of luck when it came to whether we hit the bullseye or not. With our bows and satchel of practice arrows, we warmed up a bit in silence. I wasn't expecting that we'd be talking the whole time we were trying to shoot arrows, but it still felt a little off. It wasn't until we began walking towards our targets to retrieve our arrows when Faith spoke up.

"Hey, um…"

I pulled out the few arrows that had landed on the outer white ring. "Hm?"

"Um." She repeated. There was definitely something on her mind that she was having trouble getting out. Unless it was something incredibly embarrassing, like earlier today, it most likely had to be about that "thing" she couldn't tell me about.

I didn't want to pressure her into telling me, so I decided to act somewhat casual about it as I pulled the arrows from the black ring next. "What?"

She sighed heavily and closed her eyes.

"Embrace it. Don't hold back. Just let it out." I managed to hear her mutter to herself.

"Huh?" I raised my eyebrow in response, pulling the last few of my practice shots out of my target.

"N-Nothing! It's n-nothing." She flung her hands side-to-side between us as she anxiously shook her head.

I could hear myself automatically groan softly in disappointment. Either way, I began making my way back to where we had left our bows. However, she suddenly called back out, stopping me in my tracks.

"Actually, it's not nothing."

"What's going on, Faith?" I asked, turning back to her. I couldn't help but feel like that came off a little too strongly, almost as if it was enough to reveal the fact that I had some idea of what she was hiding from me.

"There's…something I need to tell you." She turned her head away as she held her left arm with her right hand.

A subtle yet deep breath escaped through my nose as I closed my eyes. I figured if she was going to be willing to tell me the honest situation, I should reveal the fact that I had overheard her last night and what went through my head at that point. It was only fair after all. I didn't think either of us ever really wanted to keep secrets from each other.

"There's something I want to tell you too."

"T-There is?!" She shot a look of surprise at me, but then she lowered her gaze towards the floor. "…I…I should probably go first." She softly rubbed her arm before her lips parted from each other. "Um. So… Uh…I…I like…"

"Flash?" I somewhat unintentionally answered for her. I wanted to hold my breath out of instinct for my slipup, but I decided to play it off as a simple guess.

"H-H-H-Huh?!" She stuttered out in response. "W-W-W-Wha-huh?!"

"It makes sense." I felt the need to justify my unexpected answer. "After all, you _did_ like him before you moved to Crystal Prep. Now that everything that happened between you two is in the past, I guess it's not really a surprise that you'd start seeing him the same way again."

Faith stared at me with an extremely dumbfounded look on her face. It was like she couldn't believe that I had gotten it right out of the blue like that. "H-H-Huh?!" She repeated. "W-W-W-What are you saying?!"

"Look, _you_ do what you want to do." I advised. "Don't let me stop you from it…" I finished as I crossed my arms and slightly turned my head away with a bit of a sour attitude.

"Chase, you've got it all wrong!" She exclaimed as she stomped her foot on the ground. "I—"

As if it was a direct result of her action, the ground beneath us shook a bit violently for an extremely short moment, just like yesterday with the rock climbing.

"What the…?" I pondered, finding this earthquake-like movement of the ground to be both noticeably unusual and annoying. It was something I was able to ignore the first time, but now that it happened a second time, I _really_ wanted to know the cause behind it.

"Ah!" Faith cried out as something colorful whizzed right between us. Our eyes locked onto this wispy aura as it fled into the trees surrounding the camp. At that moment, I figured that whatever we saw _had_ to do something with the shaking of the ground. Could it be that magic that the girls were talking about?

"I'm sick of this. I'm going to go see what's up." I settled as I dropped the arrows and began heading in the direction that the aura left.

"W-Wait!" Faith called out as she jogged right behind me.

My footsteps felt like they had a lot more "umph" behind them, so I suppose they could be called stomps. In the meantime, there hadn't been a laid-out path like the one I took with Fluttershy, so I had to dodge and push aside tree branches every now and then.

I could see the dirt path in front of me, and I just about stepped out onto until I felt my hand being latched onto and pulled back.

"C-Chase…!" Her voice nearly sounded as if she was pleading for my attention.

"Hang on. I want to know what that _thing_ that passed us right now was." I told her, but during that moment, I could honestly feel myself coming up with any excuse I could find. I didn't know why I was feeling so anxious to hear her talk. Maybe I really _was_ curious about the odd things that had been going on around camp, but whatever the case was, I just needed to _do_ something.

I pulled my hand away from her and reached out towards the dirt path before I felt something abruptly bump into me from the side.

"Ooh!" A feminine voice cried out. As soon as I was able to get a good look at whom I had crossed paths with, I was surprised to find that it was Twilight. "C-Chase? What are you doing coming out from the woods like that?" She asked me as soon as she looked up and realized who I had been.

"Trying to hunt down something." I answered. "You didn't see some kind of magical wisp run by, did you?"

"No." She responded, adjusting the glasses on her face a bit. "Sunset Shimmer texted me to come to the rock quarry."

"But we aren't supposed to go that far…" Faith finally said, popping in from behind me.

Her appearance startled Twilight a bit, but it seemed she didn't feel the need to question it, seeing as Faith was always usually with me.

"That's what I said." Spike mentioned by Twilight's feet.

"I think that's where that wisp went to." I thought out loud. "Maybe Sunset knows something about what's going on."

"We better hurry." Twilight sincerely suggested. "She might need our help."

I simply nodded and accompanied Twilight on the path she had been taking.

We jogged for a short while before a noticeable pinkish kind of glow materialized from beyond the trees nearby. It definitely had to be the place where that thing Faith and I saw ran off to.

"What is that?" Twilight questioned before a fear-inducing shriek escaped from her lips. She had suddenly begun picking at her face, removing pieces of thin white lines, most likely a cobweb. However, another hand reached out to her mouth and shushed her.

"Shhh!" It was Sunset Shimmer. It was only a matter of seconds before she caught Faith and I following behind. "What are you two doing out here?"

"We saw something weird head in this direction." I repeated the answer that I had given to Twilight. "I figured it had to be some kind of magic, based on what we had seen at the Friendship Games. We saw it right after the ground shook, and I wanted to get to the bottom of the strange things going on in camp."

"I didn't want to get anyone else involved…but since you're already here, you should probably have a look at this." She turned around and proceeded to gesture us to follow her with her hand. "Come on."

She led us to what appeared to be some kind of cave that was guarded by a few huge boulders. I figured the cave was normally dark, but there was an immensely bright glow that continuously lit up the area somewhere deep inside of it, making it visible from the outside.

"What's going on down there?" Twilight inquired.

"I think it's Gaea Everfree, or rather, someone who wants us to _think_ she's back. C'mon!" Sunset began escorting Twilight out into the cave, but Faith's voice kept me from being right behind them.

"Hold on. Does that mean you were right about the things happening in camp being some kind of prank?" She questioned.

I believed it was _something_ like that, but I was still clueless about the entirety of the situation. "I'm not really sure. There's no way no normal person could pull off what's been going on in the camp. Stuff like the ground shaking and boat crashing into the dock. Either they've got some kind of powerful machines or crazy magic. And after everything we've seen, I think it's more believable to say that it's someone with actual magic."

"I don't know about this, Chase…" Faith worried. "Should we really be investigating this?"

"I get how you feel, but I don't think we can't just ignore this. Remember everything unusual that happened at camp? People could have been seriously hurt, and whoever that's doing this thinks it's some kind of joke. We need to at least find out who it is. Then, we can at least think of something to do about it."

"I guess you're right." Faith replied after spending several seconds in silent thought. "I'm coming with you then."

"Don't forget to be careful." I warned, knowing that she was going to stick to me whether I liked it or not.

Arriving inside of the cave, we were surprised to find an honestly breathtaking sight. It wasn't any kind of old, dusty, and scary-looking cave. It instead was one that hid reflective beauty. Among its walls, we could see a bunch of crystals lodged in by smothered mountains of stone. There was a pillar of light shining down at the center of the cave, providing a noticeable contrast to its dark interior. The sight actually almost caused me to forget about the reason we were here to begin with, and I almost spent my entire time observing the artistic nature of this extremely rare sight until Faith and I caught up with Sunset and Twilight just in time to hear something interesting.

"There's Equestrian magic here. I can... I can feel it." Sunset said.

"Wait. I thought Timber was just faking there was a magical nature creature. Are you saying it's real?" Spike returned, causing my eyebrows to both raise up and furrow close to each other.

"Timber? What does he have to do with any of this?" Twilight practically voiced my thoughts as well.

Just before I could come up with some kind of theory with this newly acquired information, we heard another eerie and empty voice echo inside the cave with us. "Nothing. It's all me."

A figure walked out from underneath the shadows and revealed herself in the light. The person that had supposedly been behind everything was the very last person I expected. It was the one person who had been working so immeasurably hard to make this week the "best week ever", so why was she actually making it one of the most dangerous weeks of all time for us in the end? She was so concerned about the students who nearly hurt themselves because of everything that happened. This doesn't make any sense!

"Gloriosa?" Sunset recognized. "But... Timber. I was sure _he_ was the one trying to make it seem like Gaea Everfree was back. It was _you_ who was trying to scare everyone away?"

"I would never try to scare anyone away from Camp Everfree." Gloriosa vaguely answered as she proceeded to walk past us towards the rocks that had been under the pillar of light. She sounded so out of tune and out of character. It definitely wasn't like her. At least, it definitely wasn't the same Gloriosa we knew back at camp. Did she finally crack under the pressure of trying to make every camper happy? Or, is it possible that she became corrupted by the magic just like Twilight had been?

I was just about to demand some kind of better reasoning from her, but Sunset unexpectedly reached out and grabbed at her arm. Her eyes became filled by a colorless light for a moment until Gloriosa forcefully tore her wrist away.

"Timber wasn't talking about letting go of the camp." She oddly began explaining as if she knew exactly what she had been talking about. "He was talking about you letting go of the magical geodes! All those things you were doing to make this week the best week ever. Every time you used magic to do them, you caused another problem somewhere else! Timber was... covering for you!"

"How do you know what I was doing with the geodes? How do you know about the magic?" Gloriosa narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Sunset, confirming that everything she had said was true.

"I can see things." Sunset returned. "Feel things. Because I have magic, too. And so does she. And so do our friends."

Huh? You guys _all_ have magic? Just like…?

"Gloriosa, Timber wasn't wrong." Twilight stepped up and spoke. "Maybe you should stop using magic. Too much of it can be dangerous if you can't control it."

"Oh, I got this. And I'm going to use it to save my camp. I just need more power!" She reached out towards the last differentiating shards that had been resting on the pillar of stone within the light.

"No!" Sunset and Twilight cried out, but it was to no avail.

Gloriosa had already touched them, and before we knew it, it was a repeat of the Friendship Games all over again. She hovered a hand over to us, and in the span of a few mere seconds, my body felt constricted by something extremely tight. I took a look and found that various vines had wrapped around me like a rope. In fact, all of us had been, and as everyone tried to escape, our former camp guide had been in the process of transforming into a monster. She was no longer recognizable.

In a sense, Timber wasn't wrong. Gaea Everfree _was_ real. Just not in the way he imagined. Gaea Everfree was his own sister.

"Sorry, y'all. I know what I need to do. But I feel like we're not on the same page. So..."

She levitated out of the cave as the others called out to her.

"Gloriosa!" Their plead was soon met with a cold response. Any light from the entrance was soon blocked off from what I could assume were a couple of those huge boulders we had seen outside, trapping us inside. " _No!_ "

"Quick! We have to get out of here!" Sunset exclaimed in distress as she desperately tried to wiggle her way out of her bonds.

"I can't move any part of my body!" Twilight anxiously returned.

"U-Ugh!" I turned over to Faith to find her softly crying out in pain. In fact, if I wasn't mistaken, tears were beginning to stream down her face. I couldn't tell if it was due to the predicament we had been in, or if she had been suffering a great deal of pain because of the way the vines had been wrapped around her. "T…This hurts…!"

If there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was the sight of her crying. There was nothing Faith ever did to deserve something like this. Watching such an innocent girl being brought to tears honestly infuriated me. I was feeling deep-seated anger instead of fear.

I managed to slowly, and a bit forcefully, run my hands down my sides and into my pockets. I wiggled my hands inside them in hopes to find something to get us out, preferably a pocket knife or something sharp. However, I felt no such thing, and it was dumb for me to think so since I never bothered to bring anything of the like with me.

Instead, I managed to come across a couple of familiar smooth objects. At that point, I remembered what they were. They were the stones I had found in the lake. I had completely forgotten about them, and I had left them in my pockets every since I had found them.

There was no point. They weren't going to free us from this trap.

As I listened to the others' worries, I became angrier with myself. Actually, I began resenting myself for not being able to do anything more. For a moment there, I began convincing myself that this was the very reason why it felt like I was losing everyone that was once important to me. Twilight had found someone she enjoyed talking to more, and Faith was on her way to growing close to someone she knew before me. It was only a matter of time before everyone else I knew would soon forget about me as well, and I would only be a faint figment in everyone's memory.

I couldn't stand that, but there was nothing I could do. I was just an ordinary high-schooler. One that's repressed all the downs in his life. One that'll become terribly afraid of the soon-to-come future. There'll be nothing he can do but just hide his pain from everyone else.

I began gripping the stones tightly inside my pocket. I felt myself losing my usual adapted calm and collected composure. I could feel water leaking beneath my tightly shut eyes. I wanted to stop hearing the cries from the girls, but they were the only sounds I could hear. A silent voice rung in my head, begging for all of this to just be a stupid nightmare from the dumb campfire story Timber told, but that was only me denying the truth that was right in front of me.

Suddenly, I felt the vines holding me loosening up. I quickly opened my eyes and found that their appearance significantly changed. They appeared to be drying up quickly, and they were turning extremely brittle and fragile. I jerked my arms and legs and found that they had broken through. I had no clue about what had just happened, but I had no time to think about it. Now that I was free, I could finally do something that mattered.

"Chase?! How'd you get out?!" I heard Sunset question.

"Over here!" Spike faced me and called. "Help me get out and I can try ripping the roots out!" Spike was small, so the vines holding him would most likely be the weakest and easiest to remove. I raced over to him and kneeled down. With all of my strength, I instead pulled over and under the vines on him until he was able to move just enough to escape. "Thanks!" He turned towards Sunset and Twilight. "I'll get started on helping them out! Go get Faith!"

Sparing no question towards following advice from a dog, I sprinted over to Faith and found her looking at me with a quite astonished look on her face. I couldn't understand why, seeing as I honestly hadn't done much. Nevertheless, I began getting to work on trying to remove the roots keeping her hostage. I still wished that I had some kind of blade at the time, but all I had were my fingers. Removing the roots from Faith was a lot tougher than with Spike, but there was no chance that I would be giving up on helping her out. Especially not after this saving grace that I had just been given.

I managed to find a jagged rock around that worked well enough as a dull saw. Nevertheless, it was much easier than using my bare fingers. By the time I finally removed any trace of her bonds, Spike managed to help the other two with his own teeth.

"Chase…" Faith softly called out my name as I felt her body fall on me.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She nodded. "T-Thanks…"

Sunset jogged past me and began trying to push the boulder blocking our path, but it expectedly wouldn't budge. We would need someone like Applejack. Nonetheless, she continued pushing through heavy grunts. "This isn't working! Twilight, you have to use your magic!"

"I don't think I can lift something that big." Twilight turned her head away shamefully.

"It's our only chance of getting out of here and helping our friends!" She reasoned.

"Twilight. If you've got magic that can help us out of here, then please help us!" Faith tearfully begged. "We can't let something like that be out there!"

Twilight turned towards Spike, who returned a reassuring nod in her arms. She sighed lightly and placed him down before she stepped towards the massive rocks. She held out her hands and closed her eyes as a magical glow emitted from those same hands. To our front, the boulder was slowly being pushed back, ripping through any roots that had been holding it in place. It was only a matter of time before we were able to clearly see the sunlight once again.

When she was finished, Twilight looked as if she was on the verge of falling back from exhaustion, but Sunset quickly helped her keep steady. She returned an approving nod towards her before she turned to us. "Come on!" She guided us out the cave.

* * *

"W-What is that?!" Faith noticed the huge wall of roots directly in front of us past several rows of trees.

"It's Gloriosa!" Sunset answered. "I can't imagine what she's done to the camp. We have to stop her!"

All of us headed towards the base of the roots as soon as possible, but they appeared much bigger and stronger to be pulled and torn off like the ones keeping us trapped inside the cave. Sunset grunted loudly as she desperately tried to rip a piece off.

"Maybe we should go get help?" Faith suggested.

Sunset shook her head. "Even _if_ we could find a bunch of people with chainsaws that are willing to believe that a camp is being overrun by a magical monster, we don't have the time!" She once again turned to Twilight. "We can stop her. I know we can! Twilight, do you think you can use your magic?"

"I don't want to use too much." Twilight anxiously answered. "Midnight Sparkle could take over."

Midnight Sparkle? Was she referring to that demon she had turned into at the Friendship Games?

"Twilight, our friends are in there!" Sunset pleaded, desperately grabbing a hold of her hands.

For some reason, Sunset had transformed, her ears shifting differently and her hair growing as long as a tail.

Twilight looked heavily reluctant, but she finally gave in nonetheless.

"Okay."

She stepped towards the unbreakable wall and once again began to hold out her hands. She slowly began to split the roots far enough from each other in order to make a path for us to walk through. Sunset was the first to head inside, and I immediately grabbed a hold of Faith's hand, knowing that Twilight could hold it open for only so long.

Normally, I wouldn't drag her into something dangerous like this, but learning from experience, she'd only worry about me from outside.

"Please, Gloriosa! What you're doing is crazy! You have to listen to me!" We heard Timber's voice from inside.

"That isn't Gloriosa." Sunset pointed out.

As soon as Twilight had ceased the use of her magic, the path she had opened immediately closed through newly formed roots.

"Twilight!"

"Sunset!"

"You're okay!"

We heard familiar voices from nearby.

"That isn't your sister." Sunset told Timber, who had been trapped by roots as large as trunks of a tree. "It's someone who's been consumed by Equestrian magic."

"Whoever you are, you have to let my sister go! Please, Gloriosa, come back!" Timber tried to convince the creature that was continuously covering and locking any part of the camp with her power. However, his words didn't seem to have any effect. "I need you! Gloriosa!"

He had been quickly submerged in a tree of roots, silencing him as he reached out. I quickly looked around in a panic to help and found an axe lying on the ground. We were going to need much more than a simply ordinary axe to bring things back to normal, but if I could at least be the stepping stone in getting to that goal, it was good enough for me.

Just as I was about to reach out for the axe, I was forced to immediately pull my hand back when what appeared to be lighting shot out from the completely covered sky and struck the ground right in front of me. Then, more roots began growing out of the ground and entangled everything in its sight, including the axe.

"Aah!" I heard a cry behind me.

I quickly turned to find that Faith had been on the ground with one of the roots snatching her at her ankle.

"Faith!" I called and raced over to her.

She held out her hand towards me, but before I could even get close, I met the same kind of fate just as she did. I fell over, having one of the roots wrap itself around my leg. I tried to somehow tear it off by constantly kicking my leg, but it was no use. If I did anything, I was only delaying the inevitable.

"Chase!" Faith worriedly cried out to me, her eyes filling with tears again. "I…!"

"I'll get you out! Just hold on!" I promised as I desperately searched for a way to escape.

"I…! I'm really… I'm really in l—!"

Her voice had been cut off, causing me to quickly look back. She had been submerged in her own pool of roots, causing me to widen my eyes in great panic.

" _ **Faith!**_ " I nearly shouted out at the top of my lungs. "No!"

As if it would make any difference, I reached out my hand as far as I could, but it was only a matter of time before my own vision became obscured by the plants holding me hostage.

In the end…I couldn't do anything.

I was weak.

Just like I was afraid of.

I let…everyone down.

I'm sorry…

…Faith.

 _Are you really giving up that easily?_

Huh?

A faint voice was clearly echoing in my head.

 _Here you are, trapped in the shadows. Yet, shouldn't it be the other way around? Get up. The shadows don't rule over you. You do. You're not going to let them take those that you love, are you?_

What are…?

Soon enough, the darkness had subsided. The roots that had covered me dried up and broke apart, just as they had done back in the cave.

What's going…?

 _Stand up! It's time to unleash your power!_

I felt heat radiate from the inside of my pockets. Instinctively, I reached and grabbed the object that served as the source of this heat. It was the black stone that I had picked up, and an immense glow emitted from its core.

"Huh?!" I cried out to myself. Unexpectedly, I felt a migraine pierce through my skull and into my head. It was as if all the stress I had been enduring due to the current circumstance had built up all together and unfolded a thousand times worse. I couldn't keep myself up. My knees feel to the ground as I grasped my head in pain. "Aghh!" I cried out as I tried to endure it.

 _You have no connection to Equestrian magic. Are you really responsible to bear the power of shadows? Prove it to me. Prove that you have no intention of giving up and that you're capable of protecting those important to you!_

Despite the everlasting pain, I wanted nothing more than to the rescue girl in front of me. The girl that was the most important thing in my life I could think of at this exact moment.

"If you can give me the power to save her and everyone else…" I managed to say as I slowly stood up while clenching my fingers against my head. "Then, let me have it!" At that moment, a name rung out inside my head. "I need your help!" I shouted out. " _ **Alexander!**_ "

Shadows enveloped all around me, and it was only a matter of time before the pain finally subsided. Light eventually pierced through the wall of shadows, and I was able to see again. However, I noticed that my peripheral vision was still a bit clouded. Something had formed on my face.

I lifted my hands and touched the object around my eyes. I couldn't see what exactly it had been, but seeing as I was able to look through, I could only sum up that it was some kind of mask. Despite this, having my hands in front of me, I noticed I had also been wearing some kind of gloves. In fact, based on a short glance at myself, my entire attire had changed, but it was only a matter of time before the voice I heard shouted out at me.

 _Did I choose an idiot? Go and put an end to this madness!_

Some kind of strands of shadow emitted from my right hand. Remembering what had happened in the cave, along with how Twilight had pushed away the blockage on our path over here gave me a general idea of what to do.

I immediately faced in the direction that Faith had been trapped and violently raised my hand towards the roots keeping her captive. Like magic, these kinds of see-through strings shot out from the palm of my hand. They surrounded the aggressive plant-life and caused them to dry out and break apart in an instant.

It was like I stripped away any part of light nurturing them and advanced their decay from several days to a matter of seconds…

As soon as they had been breaking on their own, I raced over and physically removed any piece that possessed enough strength to remain weakly firm. I dug for a short moment before I was able to see her again. She had been curled up in tears, and I couldn't imagine how it must have felt being utterly helpless.

"Faith!" I held out my hand towards us.

With a sharp gasp, she raised up her head and stared at me dumbfounded.

"…C-Chase…? Is that…?"

 _The enemy draws near. Show them that you're not to be trifled with!_

I retracted my hand and turned around. I noticed a couple of vines slowly creeping towards us.

"Don't worry." I promised. "I'm not going to let anything hurt you!"

The vines raised up like bears intending to convince themselves as fearsome foes.

 _You have the power to wipe them out. Use it!_

I repeated the same movement as I had done just a short moment ago, allowing one of the vines to fall apart in mere seconds. However, the other remained free, and it was able to strike and land a hit at me.

 _Use the shadows to quickly slice it into pieces. Go!_

"Hah!" As if I had known exactly what I had been doing, I swung my hand forcefully to the side. A ghostly darkened streak ran across the vine and disappeared as quickly as it appeared, resembling the motion blur of a long blade.

Its body hung over and dropped to the floor. In fact, if I wasn't mistaken, it appeared to continue to slowly disintegrate even after.

 _This power is now yours to wield. Use it as you wish to protect those you rightfully hold dear!_

Finding no new threats during the heated moment, I turned back around and found Faith remaining on the floor. There was still much more to do with the continuing chaos all around me, but my first priority at the time was getting her to somewhere safe.

I knelt down and gently grabbed her arms. "Come on. I'm getting you out of here one way or another."

"Uh—" She was utterly speechless.

I was afraid that I'd have to straight up carry her out of there, but all of a sudden, a bright light filled the entire hole the camp had been trapped in, and a loud explosion ensued shortly. When the unexpected light faded away, I was met with a thousand miniature green orbs falling from the sky like snow.

For some reason, I lifted up my hand as if to catch one of them, by they simply faded away. However, in doing so, I realized my hands were now completely gloveless. I lowered my eyes and found that my clothes had returned back to normal.

"You…" I heard a soft whisper.

"Hm?" I turned to the direction of the voice.

Her eyes had both been slightly trembling and tearing up, but she didn't say anything anymore. She only dove towards me and squeezed me tight as her head pressed against my chest.

A loud and collective round of applause sounded out, along with temporarily endless cheer. Of course, it obviously wasn't for me or anything. It was for a certain group that stood all together at the center of the former battlefield.

It was Sunset Shimmer, Twilight, and, well, all of the other girls that were the best of friends. The same group that slammed the last nail in the coffin back at the Friendship Games. Nevertheless, unlike everyone else, I didn't pay them any mind.

"Faith, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? Tell me. I need to know." I yearned.

I could feel her head rub side-to-side against my shirt.

"Everything's okay now." I assured her. "They've wrapped it all up just like last time."

She slowly pulled away her head and fixated her gaze on me. I gently grabbed her hand and carefully helped her up. Once she was back up on her feet, she quietly wiped any remaining tears from her eyes and sniffed a few times before it seemed she was able to remain calm for the most part.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the girls' magic could magically vacuum and clean up the entirety of the place in an instant, so everyone pulled together instead and helped pick up pieces of various torn branches and plants.

* * *

After making sure Faith had been completely fine, she accompanied me outside to help with the mess. She was still heavily quiet, but I didn't expect her to recover her cheerful and bright personality after what had just happened. Even _I_ had a tough time accepting it, and it was all still a blur for the most part. All we could really do at the moment was just move on.

I decided Faith and I could take a break, seeing as she was doing more than enough helping us when I honestly believed she should have been resting. As she silently sat on a patch of grass, seeing as a lot of things had been destroyed, including the benches, I brought us back a couple of drinks and handed it to her before I sat with her.

She wordlessly took a sip or two before turning her head towards the masses that continued to work together inside the camp. I watched her for a bit, obviously and clearly concerned for her, but I continued to force myself to give her a bit of space while making sure that she knew I was there for her whenever she wanted to talk.

"I am so sorry." I heard Gloriosa's voice softly echo as she shamefully stood in front of our Principal and Vice Principal. "I only wanted this to be the best week Camp Everfree has ever had, and instead I've made it the worst. Maybe it's for the best that I'm losing the camp to Filthy Rich."

"No. It's not." Principal Celestia sentimentally returned. "This camp has meant so much to so many people, my sister and me included."

"Why do you think we wanted our students to come here?" Her sister added on.

"We can't let Filthy Rich take this place away!" Twilight joined in on the discussion. She was still wearing the outfit she had acquired during the unfolding magical mishap, kind of like I had. However, unlike her, mine had disappeared when it all came to an end for some strange reason. "If camp meant so much to you two, maybe it meant as much to the other campers who came here in years past."

"And maybe we can get them to help save it!" Sunset stood by her side and raised confidently.

"Oh! Like a fundraiser?" Applejack suggested, setting down this huge log she had been carrying.

"Or a ball?!" Rarity squealed excitedly.

"Our band could play!" Rainbow Dash offered.

"I could help write a new song just for the occasion!" Fluttershy mentioned in her usual soft-spoken voice, garnering nods and approving chatter from everyone else around them.

I merely leaned back and placed my hands against the ground for support.

It was just like them to completely disregard everything that had just happened and easily move on.

"Those are all good ideas, but where would we hold it?" Gloriosa wondered.

"We could hold it in the crystal cave!" Sunset pointed out.

A long and loud gasp slipped out from Rarity. "A Crystal Ball! I love it!"

"I admire everyone's enthusiasm. Really, I do." Gloriosa shared. "But I-I just don't know how we're going to plan a ball by tomorrow and invite everyone."

Taking a page from the camp guide we had seen running around all week, they straightened their backs and returned a few motivated words. "We got this!"

It almost felt as if Faith and I were the only ones who weren't fully out of the hole that had been dug by the mass of magic each one of us had all experienced. Then again, I remembered that the both of us used to be simple Crystal Prep students. While Twilight used to be in the same boat with us, she had much more experience with magic than we ever had at this point. I guess we still needed a lot of getting used to even now.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the stone that seemed to give me the strength I needed to save Faith. I stared at it for a long while, wondering if there was even any point in doing what I did since the main seven girls were the heroes in the end anyway.

"…how did you do it?" I heard beside me. I turned back to find Faith softly glancing at me. "That magic…"

I continued eyeing the stone for a moment before I was able to give her the best answer I could come up with. "I think it was this stone… I think it has some kind of connection to the rocks that were in that cave. I don't know. It's all weird. Everything's a bit of blur."

A short and light giggle escaped out from Faith's lips, surprising me. "Well, looks like you did it again. You helped me when things were really looking bad. I'm sorry I'm always the one calling for you for help. It must be super annoying, huh?"

She was trying to sound cheerful, but there was noticeable sadness coming from her voice.

"Don't talk like that." I told her. "Back there, I thought _I_ was good for nothing. Letting you get taken like that. But because of you, I was able to use _whatever_ magic I had. I still don't understand any of it, but…" I paused to slip in an exhausted shrug. "I just want to take it easy for once. So, don't be sad. You're my motivation for a lot of things, you know?"

"You really think so?" She asked.

I nodded. "Believe me. I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for you."

She continued gazing at me with a slightly agape mouth, but she subtly turned her head away from me shortly after. I noticed that her cheeks lightly flared up, and I could only assume that she appreciated the compliment.

The two of us continued to sit together and watch the other campers gather around to plan out their climactic event. However, even though it seemed the legend of Gaea Everfree was now finally dead, I was sure that there was still more baggage between us that was long overdue for a firm closure.

* * *

Rarity ended up making good on her promise, providing me with a "dashing" suit to wear to the Crystal Ball that they managed to pull together quickly with their magic. Although, to be honest, I couldn't help but wonder if it was more due to the fact that putting together outfits was something she loved doing rather than fulfilling a promise she made.

A lot of different people attended this ball, not just the campers. I had heard that it was a bunch of the alumni from past years, and now that a lot of them were some pretty successful people, they were able to donate towards the fund to keep the camp where it's at.

I had just finished observing the "Rainbooms" performance when it was announced that Camp Everfree would be staying. However, I couldn't help but feel indifferent despite everyone's cheering. To put it in perspective, it almost felt as if I had been wearing a mask to a masquerade. I didn't feel as positive as everyone else clearly did, but no one was able to see it among the crowd of everyone else. And when someone would get the chance to, all I had to do was raise up the corner of my lips, and that would supposedly be convincing enough.

Yes, the big bad plant monster was defeated. Everything should be hunky-dory now, right? Maybe for everyone else, but defeating a magic-crazed monster didn't help me when it came to feeling like I was losing those that I had cared about.

I tried to tell or convince myself that I was just overreacting, but it wasn't enough. Especially when I noticed how much of a good time Faith was having in conversing with her old crush near the punch bowl.

I thought that her initiative to rekindling her old relationship with Flash was a sign for me to do the same with Twilight. In fact, I managed to muster up the courage to go and find her and maybe ask her for a dance. That didn't work out so well because… I ended up seeing her with Timber Spruce instead. And if there's anything I hate, it's being the third wheel.

Seeing her eyes light up at the sight of him, her bright smile anytime he made a weird look on his face, and her short giggle anytime he made some stupid joke…I guess it was pretty heartbreaking. Since our entire time at Crystal Prep, I had never managed to get any of that out of her.

All I could do was dig my hands into my pockets and walk away with my invisible mask holding back my repressed emotions. I needed to tell myself it was over, but even through my thoughts, I could feel my inner voice choke up. In all honesty, I just wanted to get away from it all.

And that's what led me to my desolate and lonesome self that hung around outside the entrance of the crystal cave. I blankly stared at the full moon above me, but there were no thoughts in my mind. If anything, I focused all my attention on pushing away any thoughts that wanted to have a jab at my squirming emotions.

"I never thought I'd see you out here by yourself like this." I heard a genuinely surprised voice direct at me.

My first guess was that it was Faith or even Sunset Shimmer, but I couldn't have been any more wrong when I took a look back and found my answer.

"Twilight?! What are you doing out here?" I felt several different kinds of emotions inside me merge together when it came to the tone of my voice. I felt anger, fear, sadness, and possibly even more that I couldn't quite describe. Either way, I just couldn't understand why it'd be Twilight to confront me at a time like this out of all people.

"I could ask you the same thing." She replied, appearing completely opposite than when she was with Timber. She wasn't smiling cheerfully anymore. Instead, it was kind of the same expression she would always give me back at Crystal Prep. Why? Why did it have to be her out of everyone? "I thought you and Faith were practically inseparable."

It may have just been my attitude at the time, but it sounded like a bad attempt at a joke to me. I broke our eye contact and gave her a sour-sounding answer. "She's talking with someone else right now…"

I expected her to go back inside without a word, but she startled me when she took the spot next to me and stood by me with a plastic cup held firmly in her left hand. Nevertheless, I didn't say anything. All I could do was turn my head to the ground almost shamefully.

"Is something wrong, Chase?"

"Why do you ask?" I uncaringly asked.

"You seem really different." She mentioned. "It…makes me sad."

"It's just my bad luck. Don't worry about it." I unintentionally revealed a bit too much.

"'Bad luck'…?"

"You didn't answer my first question." I shot back. "Shouldn't you be inside with Timber right about now?"

She stumbled over her words a bit, most likely due to my unexpected small outburst. "I-I-I didn't see you inside. When I noticed that you weren't around Faith, I, um, got a little worried, I guess…" She turned away sadly for a minute before her eyebrows furrowed and she faced back at me. "And I think I was right to worry. What's going on? Why do you seem so angry? Did you…get in a fight with her?"

"No." I answered. "Actually, I'm surprised you came out here, to begin with. I didn't think we'd ever talk again."

"Huh?!" Her eyes widened as a reaction to my response. "Why would you say that?"

"You tell me." I muttered as I stared off into the dark forest. "Besides that time we were making paper lanterns, could you name me a time we actually had some kind of conversation ever since we came to camp?"

"That's…" She raised her hand and held it against her chest.

"Yet, you seemed perfectly happy talking to someone whom you literally just met a few days ago… Like I said, it's just my luck, I guess."

"Hold on…" She mentioned. "You didn't think I was…ignoring you, did you?"

"A little, yeah." I bluntly admitted. "It doesn't help that I tried being your friend back at Crystal Prep, and here at camp, you're immediately attracted to someone out of the blue like that. I don't want to be _that_ guy, but it just bothers me so much. It feels like my hopes were all for nothing. And now that Faith is also into someone else…I…" I had to stop myself. Anymore, and I was on the verge of letting the tears I had been holding back escape.

"No, Chase…" She placed her hand on my shoulder, slightly forcing me to look at her. "It's not like that. I didn't mean to…" It seemed like she was waiting for something from me, but all I did was turn away from her. "I'm really sorry. I…just didn't want to get in the way between you and Faith."

Her answer raised my eyebrows.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You and Faith are so close." She elaborated as she lowered her head. "I didn't exactly want to 'force' myself between you two, especially after how I acted back at the Friendship Games. It's not like I wasn't your friend anymore. I just thought that I didn't really have a place when it came to just the two of you. I'm sorry. I'm still learning a lot about friendship, so maybe I was really in the wrong all along. I just don't understand why you'd feel so strongly about someone like _me_. Even when you have a great friend like Faith, you still worry about me. I don't get it. All I've ever been is someone who used to pay attention only to her work. So, why am I so important to you?"

I had her answer all along, but I was extremely hesitant to give it. Nevertheless, I felt like it was now or never. I didn't know my exact reasoning behind revealing it, but all I knew was that I felt it needed to come out before it would crush me somewhere down the line.

"I like you, Twilight."

"H-Huh?" Her head raised quickly.

"I like you." I admitted, turning my head away from embarrassment. "I like you more than a friend. That's why."

"Y-You…" From what I could see, she was extremely startled and surprised by my answer. However, her head sunk and turned sadly away from me. "…can I ask why? Why do you feel that way about me?"

She managed to catch me off my guard. To tell the truth, I had never _really_ listed out the details on why I exactly felt that way about her. It was just the way I felt.

"…I…I don't know…" I tried to answer as I rubbed the back of my neck. "You and I. We weren't so different back in our first year at Crystal Prep. Everyone was so stuck-up and annoying. You were so quiet, and you looked so lonely. At first, I only thought that the two of us could have been great friends since we were practically the same when it came to our social life. But then, I guess I eventually started hoping for something more. And to see that hope just be crushed right in front of me? It sucks."

Twilight didn't respond right away. She remained heavily silent for way too long, and I felt as if this was finally the point where our friendship would die right out.

"Do you know why I started talking to Timber, Chase?" She brought up unexpectedly. "It was purely by coincidence. It had started with tent assignments, but then we just got caught up talking about the science behind the gemstones that the tents were labeled by. It was really so exciting. I had never met anyone that I could just talk about science with."

"Oh," I mumbled. "So, I guess I wasn't smart enough, huh…?"

She shook her head. "We started talking more after that, but I didn't necessarily _like_ him. We only knew each other for a few days after all."

"So, what are you saying?" I longed. "That there really isn't anything going on between you two?"

"…well…" Her fingers curled together as she uncomfortably looked away.

At my fault, my spirits had risen up a little when she explained everything, but they immediately began to fall back down after her latest response.

"Timber…asked me to hang out with him after camp. He thought we could get dinner or catch a movie sometime, and…I said yes." My shoulders sunk no matter how hard I tried to keep myself strong and upright. "I'm sorry, Chase." She sincerely apologized. "I didn't know. I didn't know that you felt this way about me. If I had…"

If I would've been honest with my feelings earlier, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in now. I'm such a freaking idiot.

"Oh. Okay." It was all I could muster up.

"You're the best friend I could have ever had, Chase." Twilight felt the need to tell me. "You've been there for me ever since Crystal Prep. Please don't think that I don't care about you anymore. I do. I really do. I would have been willing to move a little further with you. But, I can't just…"

You can't just go back to Timber and drop everything because of my stupidity. Being the loser in this case, even _I_ would think that was too cruel.

"…yeah. I get it." I answered.

She continued to look at me concerningly before she raised up another question. "There's something else that I want to know. Are you really sure that _I'm_ really right for you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked exhaustedly, drained from the big sucker punch to the heart.

"Don't you think there's maybe a particular someone better for you? All I could imagine doing is talking your ear off with stuff you're not even interested in…"

It sort of sounded like she was trying to cheer me up by explaining how much of a pain she would actually be, but to be utterly honest, I didn't think any of that would actually matter.

I didn't want to think about it anymore, even if I _could_ think straight at all. All I could do was answer with uneasy silence. Twilight noticed and decided to lightly grab a hold of my hand. "Come on. Let's get back to the party. You shouldn't be all alone out here like this. I bet Faith is looking for you right now."

"Thanks, but…" I simply slipped my hand out of hers. "I think I'm going to take a walk." I turned around and dug my hands into my pockets as I began heading out on the path back to camp. "See ya."

* * *

I felt soft vibrations coming from my pocket by the time I made it back to camp. I pulled out my phone and found that I had several missed calls from Faith. Not only that, she had texted me a few times afterward.

 _Where are youuuu?! (_ _Д´)(_ _Д´)(_ _Д´)_

I really wasn't in the mood to talk, and I knew she'd come running the second I told her where I was. I decided to leave it unanswered and headed to our tent to change out of the annoying suit I had been wearing.

It was no surprise that the campgrounds were practically deserted all together. Everyone had been at the Crystal Ball. I thought about forcing myself back over there, but how could I honestly do that? I could only hold my mask up for so long, and after having my loss confirmed with Twilight, there was definitely no way I'd be able to hide something like that.

I made my way over to the docks to find a bench to sit on, but I came to yet another unexpected sight. I must have had not seen it before, but the dock was completely gone. All of our hard work had been ruined for the second time. It wasn't a coincidence that this matched up exactly to what I had been going through. No matter how hard I struggled to reach some kind of goal, it always seemed like I failed in the end.

Surprisingly, I noticed that there had been _one_ lone bench at where we had started building the dock. I found it unbelievable that it was still standing unbroken. Despite that, I headed over and took a seat on it. Then, I just watched the lake move steadily underneath the moonlight that glimmered over it. I didn't see any pieces of the dock in the water, so they must have been fished out already or it was just too dark to tell.

I sighed heavily and slumped forwards as I covered my face with my hands. So much had happened, and I didn't know whatsoever what to do with it. I pulled out the stone that had given me the power I needed and stared at it for a long while. At that moment, I felt the strong urge to raise my arm and throw it across the lake as far as I could, but I couldn't. After all, the stone may have been the only good thing I had left. It was the last piece of me that I felt could actually _do_ something. I ended up slipping it back into my pocket.

"Chase?" A girl cautiously called as she slowly approached me on the bench. "What the heck are you doing here all by yourself?" She asked after she had a look at my face.

I should have known that Faith would end up finding me somehow. It was like the two of us were connected…

She had still been wearing the dress that Rarity fitted her into. It was a white dress with thin straps. There was nothing too fancy about it, but I had to admit that Faith still looked amazing in it. Almost like some kind of innocent angel. She held down the hem of her skirt against the back part of her thighs as she accompanied me on the bench. However, all I could do was simply look away from her. There was a reason why I didn't answer her texts.

I could feel her eyes glued on me, so I had no choice but to sigh lightly and respond to her.

"Why'd you come here?"

"You didn't answer my texts, dummy. Then, a little birdie told me that you went back to camp. Don't like crystal balls? Or did you get bored of it?"

It didn't seem that she understood how frustrated and serious I had been feeling, so I just gave her a straight up answer in response.

"I came here because I wanted to be alone."

"What?! Why?!" She nearly jumped out of her seat in shock.

I knew her. She wasn't going to stop pestering me about it until I finally cracked, so I manned up as much as I could and began repeating through the frustrating events of the night. "You know that ship with Twilight I've been waiting to get on board for the longest time? Well, that ship has sailed, and I'm pretty sure it's not coming back."

"…what?" She questioned.

"I told her." I continued. "I told her that I liked her, but I was too late. You know that camp guide, Timber Spruce? Well…" I raised my hands to form a short shrug before I allowed them to carelessly land back at my laps. "It's over. It's only a matter of time before I'll feel like I'm on my own again. It'll be just like how it was on my first day at Crystal Prep."

"What are you talking about?" Faith leaned towards me in concern. "You have me. I won't let you be all alone."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked as I turned my head away.

"H-Huh?"

I shook my head. "You know that thing I wanted to tell you before when we were at the archery range? I might as well spill it out now seeing as I practically have nothing else to lose. I overheard you the other night. You were talking to Sunset Shimmer in the bathroom, and I heard what you two were talking about. About what you were so afraid to tell me…"

"A-Ah!" Faith's face immediately grew flushed, and she remained absolutely speechless as she continued gawking at me in shock. "Y-You h-h-heard…?!" She managed to say.

"Why couldn't you just tell me?" I desired. "Did I do something to make you lose your trust in me? Or is it because you figured that we'd drift apart like Twilight did with me?"

"I…" She couldn't answer properly, and she only shamefully averted her eyes as a result.

"You shouldn't be so scared of me. I don't decide what you do with your life. If you want to date him, then go for it. But, if you did that…I can only imagine we'd slowly start hanging out less and less… It's only a matter of time before we'd…"

"'Him'?!" Faith nearly exclaimed. "C-Chase, what are you talking about?!"

"What else could I be talking about?" I almost raised my voice. "I'm talking about you and Flash!"

"F-Flash…?!" She responded with extremely widened eyes.

Did she genuinely not have a clue? But how could she when…?

I sighed heavily and sunk down on my seat. "I don't even know anything anymore. I just wish this was all one annoying dream." I shook my head and covered my face with my hands. "This is so frustrating. Why did all of this have to happen? I swear… I fail at everything I do. Even when it comes to being your best friend."

"You know…" I heard her softly speak. "You can really be a big dummy sometimes…" I heard her get up and expected her to leave, but her feet didn't move. Instead, she said something else. "Come on. Get up."

"…what?" I questioned, my body feeling glued to the bench.

"Get up!" She nearly shouted, startling me. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up as hard as she could.

Once we were both at the same level, she continued to somewhat glare at me with a scolding kind of expression on her face. All I could do in response was break our eye contact with each other. I didn't know what was going on, but I felt as if I didn't have the strength or courage to face it head on.

"Look at me, Chase." She sternly ordered.

Anxiously, I slowly turned my gaze towards her. Her glare remained firm, but this time, there were tears brimming at the corner of her eyes. I was able to witness this for a few seconds before she suddenly pulled towards me.

My eyes stretched open when her slightly moist lips collided with mine. Despite this having been the third time, there was a feeling I had never felt before. Her lips seemed to pull mine in, almost as if she had been hugging them fervently. And just like magic, she seemed to inflate me with some kind of positive energy. It was like she was telling me all the motivating words I needed to hear, but it was all spoken through an elongated kiss.

After what seemed like an eternity, her face finally pulled away. Her cheeks were at the reddest I had ever seen them, but she had never looked so much more striking before in my life.

"There's something I need to tell you, Chase." She said. "Something that I didn't get to tell you back at the archery range. I..." She paused for a moment, and I believed I was able to see her nervously swallow before she continued on. "I know you're hurting right now, but I want to be the one that brightens up your day. I want to be the light of your life. I want to be the light that shines when you're in the darkest places. You're my best friend, and that's why I've been so scared to tell you this. But, I can't hold back anymore." She squeezed her eyes shut and balled up her hands into a pair of fists. "The truth is... I..."

There was an extensive pause, but I waited for as long as I needed to hear what she so desperately wanted to say.

"I love you, Chase." She declared. "And I don't mean that in a 'best friends' kind of way. I mean it in a... 'significant other' kind of way. In a... 'boyfriend/girlfriend' kind of way. I… **I'm totes in love with you, Chase!** " She exclaimed out loudly at the end.

I stared back at her with an agape mouth as I felt everything I knew at the very moment shatter into pieces. Everything I had just witnessed proved all the more that this was a dream, but I still wasn't waking up from it.

She continued to stare at me with a teary-eyed face, and her body noticeably trembled as if she was cold. She was waiting for my response, and there was no way I could just leave it unanswered like her texts. She needed an answer, and all I could do at that very moment was trying to give her one as best as I could.

"…Y…You seriously…? That's what…?"

She nervously nodded her head.

"I…" I tried to think, but my mind wasn't giving me any helpful hints. "I don't what to say. I…can't really say that I've thought about something like this. So, to be utterly honest, I'm not…sure how I, you know, feel about you. After what just happened with Twilight, I think I need some time before I can give you a proper answer." I could see a frown slowly stretch across her face the more I talked. I didn't want her to get the wrong idea, so I tried to be as clear as I could. "I'm not saying that I don't feel the same way about you. I care about you a lot. You know that, Faith. You're really important to me. I promise you that with all of my heart. But, I also don't want to lie to you and say that I feel the same way about you on the spur of the moment. So many things are running through my head, and I can hardly think straight. I almost can't even believe this is happening right now. All I know is that I don't want there to be a chance that I give you an answer that turns out to be the opposite somewhere down the road. I'm sorry, Faith. Coming from someone who just got their heart crushed, I can't imagine how you feel… I'm really sorry. I…don't want you to feel the same way I do…"

She lowered her head and began sniffling a little. I was afraid that she'd run off crying, leaving this possibly unamendable rift between us. But, she didn't. Instead, she shook her head and wiped away the droplets of water that were on the verge of running down the corner of her eyes.

"Sure." She replied. "It hurts. Being in love will do that. But, I'm also willing to stand strong for you, Chase. I promise I'll always be there for you. I know you're hurting, but if anyone understands how you feel, it's definitely me. I want to be with you in every step of the way to help you heal and move on. I'll wait for you, Chase. But, could you just promise me one thing…?"

"What is it?" I desired to know.

"Whatever you decide with, you know, my feelings, promise me that...we'll still at least get to keep being together like we've always been."

There was no way I'd let our friendship like this break apart because of something like that. If there's one person that I won't let go with all my might, it's you, Faith.

I grabbed her hands and looked directly at her eyes as seriously as I could.

"I promise."


	5. Sunset Bridge

" _I've finally made my decision."_

 _Faith and I were gathered together in front of an entrancing sunset. Then, it was like our hearts melted into one._

I felt my cheek being constantly poked, but I was too lazy to do anything about it. However, the prodding didn't end, and through the tired state of my mind, I was sure that it wasn't going to end until I managed to stop it myself. I groaned and I turned my body in bed to face the direction the poking came from before I finally started opening my eyes.

"…what?" I mumbled out. I knew who the perpetrator had been, but I never expected to see her lacking so little clothing. My eyes shot open, and I immediately began suspecting that I had still been asleep. But, then I heard her giggle.

My eyes cleared up soon from a blurry mess, and I found that she had actually just been wearing her frilly two-piece swimsuit.

"Took you long enough." She announced behind a gleaming smile.

I raised my body and sat at the edge of my bed as I groaned and covered my face with my hand. "This is so weird…"

"W-What? Why?" Her face began to redden up as she averted her eyes nervously. "Is it because I'm in a swimsuit…?"

"Huh?" I took another look at her, but after having heard her say that, _I_ felt embarrassed just looking at her for some reason. "N-No. It's because of this dream I was having."

"A dream?" She faced back towards me and decided to lean in a bit closer. "What about?"

I remembered very faint remnants, but they were too embarrassing to outright tell her. In fact, looking back at my memory also caused me to remember practically everything that had happened last night. It was still hard to believe that it had all happened in the first place, but I wasn't eager to bring it up again. I decided that this would be _one_ thing I'd keep from her.

"I can't really remember." I told her, which wasn't exactly a lie.

"Well, forget about the dream for now. Come on! You have to get changed, so we can go swimming!" She encouraged as she began pulling my arm.

"Swimming?" I asked. "Isn't the dock still in pieces for like the third time?"

"I let you sleep in late today." She mentioned with an energetic wink. "The girls were able to the fix up the dock. They practically did it in no time with their crazy magic."

"Really…?" I was genuinely surprised to hear that piece of news. I had been expecting to be pulled out in the morning to help them fix it.

"Yep!" She bellowed out happily and continued to pull me out of bed. "Hurry! We don't have long before we leave Camp Everfree! I want to go swimming at least once, and I don't want to do it without you!"

"Alright, alright." I told her and finally removed myself from the comfort of my bed. "Let's go then."

"Huh?" She looked me over and stared at me with a puzzled face. "You can't go swimming like that."

I had been wearing my usual camp attire, but there was a perfect reason why I had no reason to change, to begin with.

"Well, I'm not going in the water." I answered.

"Why not?!" She questioned with puffed cheeks.

"I don't feel like it." I responded with a yawn.

"You know, if you get in the water, I'm pretty sure it'll wake you _right_ up!" She suddenly grabbed my shirt and began pulling at it. "It won't take you long! Come on!"

"H-Hey!" I returned as I tried to pull back the edges that she had been lifting up. "You know how bad this looks?! You'd whack me in the face if I did this to you!"

She seemed to finally surrender as she retracted her hands and looked away with her pursed lips aiming to the side. Her slim legs crossed together as her hands gathered together behind her waist. It almost looked like she had regretted her actions like an innocent child, but then I heard her mumble out something unfitting.

" _I'd never hit you…_ "

"Huh?!" I immediately questioned the context behind that statement.

"Fine then!" She crossed her arms. "You don't have to get in the water with me, but because of that, that'll be _my_ little secret."

"What are you _talking_ about?" I asked, deeply frustrated.

"Guess you have to change to find out, huh?" Her upset frown was soon replaced with a mischievous grin.

I eventually exhaled a heavy sigh, hardly in the mood to keep up with her shenanigans. If I knew her right, she was just trying to come up with something stupid on the spot, so I could go swimming with her.

Although it wasn't as she wanted, I went on ahead and left our tent without changing.

* * *

"Third time is a charm. Or is it fifth? I've lost track." We heard coming up to where the docks had supposedly been fixed up at.

"All that matters is that the runway is finished." Rarity mentioned.

"I think you mean the 'dock'?" Applejack softly argued.

"Oh, to-mah-to, tomato."

The girls that had gathered together soon turned around as Faith and I entered the scene, and I was able to get a clear view of the brand-new dock, enticing me to the idea that everything that happened yesterday was all actually a dream.

"Whoa! It looks…!"

"Amazing, right?" Sunset finished for me. "Just another example of what kind of power the magic of friendship holds…in more ways than one." She shared as she looked among her friends.

I followed her example and found that each of them had actually been wearing their own swimsuit as well. And, I was a little surprised when their swimsuits were actually individually unique when compared to the other. I couldn't put it into words, but each of their outfits seemed clearly inspired by their taste. I only wondered if Rarity had actually made each and every one of them with their thoughts in mind, similarly to the dresses she made for the Crystal Ball.

My eyes came across Twilight and firmly stopped. It was only a second after when she noticed and locked eyes with me. She then seemed to awkwardly look away, reminding me exactly what had unfolded last night. I wasn't sure if the other girls had noticed, but I definitely had to bring something random up in order to distract my mind, if not the others.

"S-So, where's Pinkie?" I asked.

"I think she said she was making snacks for us?" Fluttershy believed.

"Let's go get settled at a table then." Twilight suggested as she made a soft adjustment to her glasses.

I was unsure of whether she said that to unintentionally draw further away from me, but I had to force myself to stop thinking about anything to do with her, believing it'd only draw negative thoughts.

I dug my hands into my pockets and felt the objects I continuously forgot about. I pulled them out and first recognized the black opal that had apparently shared me the power to help save Faith, but then I recognized the other gem afterward. The white and pure-looking opal. I shoved the black one back in my pocket and turned over to Faith, who had remained at my side.

"Hey." I spoke.

"Hm?" She turned over to me from observing the clean and calm lake.

"I actually found this a while back." I revealed the opal to her. "I was going to keep it, but after looking at it again, I figured you should have it. It reminds me a lot of you…"

Faith gasped lightly at the sight of it. "It looks so beautiful! Are you sure you really want me to have it?"

"Yeah, of course." I answered with confidence. "To be honest, if I kept it, it'd probably just get dust somewhere or something."

"If you're really sure…then thanks!" She squeezed me tightly before carefully accepting the stone and spending some time to observe it for a bit. "Hmm. I kind of don't want to let it sit around and get dust either. Maybe I can find someway to use it as an accessory? I could…" She began thinking to herself, but then she seemed to stop and send a serious look at me. "Hey, Chase… You think this gem could also have magic like the other one you found?"

"I don't know…" I responded uncertainly with my hands instinctively slipping into my pockets. "As far as I know, it was only the black one that gave me magic, not the white…"

"Maybe we should ask the girls." Faith suggested. "They're apparently a lot more experienced with this stuff than we are."

I felt differently.

"Actually, can we keep the whole 'me getting magic' thing a secret from the others?" I felt the need to propose. "I sort of don't really want to bring it up and have them ask me all these questions. Mostly, I don't really want anything to do with this magic business. It's crazy enough seeing it all happen someplace that's not a video game."

"I guess I see what you mean…" Faith lowered her gaze towards the Opal and held it close to her chest. "I wouldn't exactly want that magic they talk about all the time to ruin the way our lives already are. To tell you the truth, I've sometimes wondered what it'd be like to be a magical girl, but now that I've seen it for myself, it looks so stressful." She crossed her arms and looked back in thought. "We _barely_ got out of the one here at camp by the skin of our teeth. Maybe we should just let the others handle it unless they absolutely can't do it without us."

"My thoughts exactly."

" _I'm baaack!_ " We heard Pinkie scream out cheerfully as she came running with a bundle of different assorted candy and sweets in a swimsuit that matched perfectly with both her personality and the things she had been carrying. "Let's celebrate!" She cried out and extended her arms. In the process, confetti, sprinkles, and marshmallows rained down onto the dock.

In literally a blink of an eye, the next thing I witnessed knocked my jaw wide open. Pieces of charred wood everywhere in what was once fresh and clean water. Smoke lifting up from any wood that still managed to stand. In an instant, everything had been ruined yet _again_!

All the girls that had been waiting at one of the picnic tables had gotten a closer look at the scene, and it was no surprise when each of them had been sharing a similar look of shocked horror. Rarity was heard squealing before she fell over and literally fainted on the spot. All of us had been in an utter state of silence and possibly even denial.

"You've gotta be kidding me. You've gotta be freaking kidding me. No. No. No. Are you serious? No!" I felt myself pacing back and forth and freaking out. This was what? The fourth or fifth time already? Like Rainbow, I had lost count, and the sight of this made me wish for our bus home to drive right up and take us as far away from this camp as possible.

"…I don't think _you_ have any magic that can help, do you, Chase?" Faith asked, clearly taken back by what had just happened as well. She sighed and shook her head. "You know what would be good right about now? The power to rewind time. Like, that girl from that one game I've played. You know?" She turned towards the shattered remains of the dock and began lifting her hand. "All you have to do is stick out your hand and—"

What sounded like something you'd only hear by recording a set of events and reversing its playback rung in my ears just as Faith had mentioned about something similar. I turned towards the dock to find it being easily pieced together as if some ghostly spirit or figure heard our troubles and helped us out of the goodwill of its heart. Within a few seconds, the docks had been completely back to normal, and it was like everything we had just witnessed was just an entire shared hallucination.

There was an extremely long moment of silence tacked onto the one that was already actively occurring from the destruction of the dock. It was only when Pinkie Pie spoke when our senses slowly reverted back to normal.

" _Uhhh_. What just happened? I thought I just made the dock go _KER-PLOW!_ Kind of like this!" Pinkie was just about to pitch another ball of sprinkles towards the dock until Sunset Shimmer thankfully stopped her.

"No! No more throwing!" Sunset Shimmer begged and then faced the other girls. "Did anyone else see what just happened?"

"Besides Pinkie exploding the dock and it somehow gluing itself back together? Nuh-uh." Rainbow shook her head.

"This is _horrible!_ This is _perplexing_!" Rarity began lifting herself off the ground as she began acting out a rather dramatic scene. "This is the _ABSOLUTELY WORST THING to have ever—_ Oh, the runway's back. _"_ She finally noticed when she opened her eyes.

"What was that?!" Twilight questioned, racing over to the dock and taking a look around for clues. "Was it…magic?"

"I don't think it was any of us…" Fluttershy slowly approached. "Do you think…maybe…it could be...?"

" _Oh no!_ " Applejack shook her head furiously. "I am _not_ going to go through this _all_ over again for what time we have left of camp." She appeared to begin stomping her way over to the dock and pointed a sharp finger out on the water. "We have our magical geodes now. There's no monster in this camp anymore. Let's just pretend that Pinkie never really blew up the dock and leave it at that, okay? Please?"

"Well, maybe one of us did that and we didn't even realize it?" Sunset theorized. "After all, we just got our powers, remember? None of us know what they can fully do."

"Works for me!" Pinkie cheerfully skipped out onto the dock before carelessly jumping into the lake.

There seemed to be general chatter and nods of agreement coming from the rest of the girls afterward. Seeing how they had all been getting ready to get into the water, I turned over to Faith. However, I nearly jumped when I found her still actively holding her hand out. Her eyes had been widened out immensely, and her jaw hung open as if she was still shocked by the prior explosion. I almost feared that she had been completely paralyzed until I was able to bring her arm down slightly.

"…Faith?"

She shook her head and pulled up her hand to her face.

"…did…did I…?"

She tried facing her hand at other different locations nearby, but nothing happened. She looked like she was going to have a mini freak-out, leading me to call her name out softly again. "Faith, hey." I placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look back at me. She stared at me for a good second until she shook her head a second time and turned her eyes back at the Opal I had given her.

"Um. You…uh…better hold on to this for now."

I couldn't blame Faith for being scared of a measly rock. Even I didn't understand what mine had done to me. It was hard to say if the opal I had wanted to give Faith really _did_ cause the dock to patch itself up. It could have easily been a coincidence, considering that nothing else happened afterwards when she tried to use a power she thought she had. That sight continued to linger around my mind, but all we could currently do was follow Applejack's advice and write it off as nothing out of the ordinary.

I assumed Faith was able to let it go eventually because she ended up paying more mind to the fun she was having with splashing about with the other girls. I remained at the docks and allowed my feet to soak in the water as I silently watched them. Every now and then, I'd try to purposely avoid eye contact with Twilight, lest I find ourselves in another uncomfortable and unnecessary awkward moment. But, it didn't take long before I realized how annoying it was that I needed to act like this in the first place.

I had been staring at my reflection in the lake and ironically drowning in a sea of empty thoughts before I heard the sounds of water being shifted by bodily movements. It wasn't until I heard a voice when I finally snapped out from the inside of my head.

"Are you _sure_ you don't want to join us?" Faith asked, resting her arms on top of the end of the dock. "Who knows when you might have another chance to hang out with a bunch of cute girls." She flashed her eyebrows playfully.

I usually would have found her kind of teasing welcoming at a moment like this, but I couldn't help but give it a soft dismissal. "Hm."

Her mischievous smirk slowly transformed into a frown, and she turned her head over to a certain direction where the girls had been. Then, she turned back to me with her eyebrows furrowing in concern. "…is it really that bad?"

I sighed heavily and began to get up. "I'm going to go get a drink. Don't worry about me, alright?" I dried myself off with one of the towels that they had brought and proceeded to put my shoes back on. "If you want, we can go swimming when we get back home. All I really feel like doing is just chilling the rest of the week."

"Ah…mm." Faith had opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but I could only assume that she had nothing to say at that moment as nothing had come out.

This, in turn, gave me a chance to walk away without having to admit the real reason for leaving so early.

* * *

I told her that I had wanted to get a drink, but I actually just wanted some "me" time. After getting the go-ahead for going out on the boat, I made my way to the boathouse and proceeded to follow through the instructions on taking the boat out. I noticed the life-jackets stacked on the side of the wall, but I honestly didn't feel like wearing one. I had already felt constricted enough, and all I wanted was to just let my mind wander freely. Besides, with how deep the water in the river actually was, I didn't think it was possible for campers as old as us to drown. Faith and the others _were_ swimming out there, so what difference does it make anyway?

Just as I started to push the boat out, I heard an eerie creak from behind me. I quickly turned around to find a figure standing in front of the entrance door that closed behind her.

"Hey." She greeted casually. "Thought you could slip on by without me noticing, huh?"

I turned my focus back on the boat and rested my hand on it. However, now that she was here, I couldn't exactly continue what I had been doing without at least saying something. At the same time, I didn't really want to say anything since there was nothing I wanted to say, to begin with.

She dropped down to my level and approached the boat with me with her hands tied behind her back.

"Mind if I come with you?" She asked.

"Weren't you swimming with the others?" I returned.

"Swimming gets a little old after a while." She answered and then slightly turned her head away. "…especially when you're not there…"

I grunted softly in response. "…sorry."

"You don't have to apologize." She assured. "You can make it up to me if you take me out on the boat with you." She revealed a playful smile.

I wasn't sure how things were going to go from here on out, but I decided to allow her to accompany me for now. "Sure."

I rowed us outside as Faith quietly observed the scenery we slowly passed by. Eventually, we came onto an isolated and desolate area that was devoid of any sound besides the endless ambience of nature. I sighed heavily as I relaxed my muscles. This kind of atmosphere was honestly so much nicer. No magic. No unnecessary voices. Just a silent peace of mind.

It actually reminded me of the nature walk I had taken with Fluttershy. Only, at that time, my lack of sleep had prevented me from truly appreciating the opportunity of escaping all busy troubles of life, even if it was just for a short moment.

I stood up and adjusted myself on the boat, sitting back and facing outward. At that moment, I closed my eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and just listened to any little ambience my ears could pick up. Several seconds later, I slowly exhaled the oxygen I had kept in through my nostrils.

I felt a subtle movement on the boat, signaling me that Faith had been repositioning herself as well. To my surprise, I felt her bare back press against mine. However, the both of us continued to remain silent. I accepted her gesture and allowed my body to relax back a bit while keeping myself upright to return the favor. Unless one was lying down on the boat, there wasn't exactly a place to comfortably lie your back, so this was a welcoming offer for each of us.

I kept my eyes shut to indulge and hopefully become 'in-tune' with nature as Fluttershy would put it. At some point in my mediation, I heard Faith's voice softly speak out.

"Things won't be weird between us…right?" She asked. "I don't want what we have to change because of what I said last night."

Chirps from nearby birds helped soothed the momentarily silence between us. In fact, if there was as a good time to bring up last night, right now was probably the best. I didn't feel any pressuring need to answer right away, and because of this, I felt like I was able to answer a lot more genuinely.

"It's only weird if you make it weird." I told her.

"Hmm." She sounded somewhat relieved by my response. "You're right, I guess." She paused for a second or two. "I meant every word I said last night. I wasn't sure if you knew that, or if you thought I was just crazy emotional for some weird reason." A small giggle escaped from her lips. "I never thought I'd say it right then and there, but I guess I did. And you know what? I don't regret it. I feel…free."

"Can I ask you something?" I brought up.

"Hm?" Her head adjusted and slightly rotated towards me.

"How long have you felt like this?" I wondered.

"Hm." She thought, and then she eventually broke into another jubilant giggle. "It's hard to say. Hehe. I've always loved you for a while now. It was just recently when I realized something about that love was off. Like if I wasn't expressing it to my full potential or something. You want to know something funny?"

"What's that?" I asked.

"Back at Crystal Prep, when you asked me why we never tried dating, I sometimes look back at that moment and laugh. I either must have been a huge scaredy-cat, or I was _really_ concerned about where that kind of level of relationship would take us. Maybe it was both. Either way, I guess I have to admit that I'm still a little scared of what'll happen since you know how I really feel about you. But, when I remember your promise, I feel like there's nothing to worry about. You're my best friend, and there's no way we met each other by coincidence. You…complete me, heh. Sorry, I don't mean to get all sappy."

"It's okay…" I answered rather depressively. "I'm the one who should be sorry."

"For what?" She inquired curiously.

I shook my head, almost feeling disgusted with myself. "Spilling your feelings like that, only to have me just keep you on a line." I felt a chuckle raise up and shoot past my tongue. "Flash could probably handle this better than I can."

"Stop talking, dummy." She innocently requested. "Flash was just puppy love. You're the real deal, and I can say that for a fact after everything you've done for me. I told you I'd wait until you come up with an answer you're comfortable with because I know you care about me too. I wouldn't want you to give me the wrong answer because you felt like you had to give it. Just don't do something stupid like avoid me because you still don't have your answer."

"Don't worry." I assured, unexpectedly feeling a little spirited. "I know I can't hide from someone like you. You can probably find me anywhere I could possibly go if you really put your mind to it."

She laughed. "You're totes right. So, let's keep hanging out together like we've always been doing, alright? I promise I won't bug you about it unless you feel like you need to talk about it."

I shook my head lightly. "If you feel like you need to talk about it too, then don't worry about keeping these things away from me. Okay? That's our deal."

"Kay." Her shoulders raised up ecstatically.

I lowered my eyes towards the surface of the boat and thought to myself.

It was these kinds of moments that I absolutely enjoyed having with her, but was it enough to warrant my own true confession? I knew she was willing to wait until I came up with an answer that I felt comfortable with, but I honestly still wished I was able to give one to her now. However, as long as my prickly relationship with Twilight remained, I only felt my true feelings would be negatively influenced.

If I wanted to get her answer to her, I would have to at least truly get over the feelings that remained of Twilight. I'd most likely need to formally straighten things out with her, but I had no idea when that would happen or if it would even ever actually happen.

I shook those thoughts away from my head as best as I could and focused on taking in the scenery around us with Faith. All I wanted right now was to at least spend time with her with no interruptions.

"Thanks, Faith." I expressed warmly.

"Hm?" She questioned.

"Whatever the case is, you _are_ my light. I feel better already having you around. So, thanks."

I could hear her giggle giddily.

"You're welcome."

Faith and I returned to the boathouse some time later, and she stuck around as I properly placed the boat away. Just as I was about to join her at the door, I unexpectedly heard my phone jingle and vibrate as a signal of an incoming text message.

I pulled out my phone and swiped at the screen to see what was in store for my eyes. It was surprisingly a text from Sunset Shimmer, and it was another link to an image gallery. I clicked at it and found a few photos in a familiar setting flashing at me. Everyone in the photos had been dressed formally, and after staring at the background for a second or two, I realized that they had been taken last night.

 _After looking these over for a while, I just realized something. Where were YOU the entire night? I figured you would be with Faith, but you were nowhere near her each time I passed by or talked with her. Even then, I don't think she stayed very long. Did you skip the entire Ball? It was totally out of this world!_

I studied her text message quietly for a short moment before she tacked on a few additional messages each separated from the prior one.

 _Get it?_

 _Out of this world?_

 _Because magic?_

I could feel my eyelids lower in reaction to her joke, but I was more concerned about the pictures she had sent me of the Crystal Ball instead. I scanned through the photos and found that they had seemed to mostly revolve around the seven of them. There was one where Pinkie was helping herself to the dessert table. Another one had Rainbow Dash rocking the guitar. One where Fluttershy was posing rather adorably with Spike. I continued to skim through a few more, noticing one or two of them being a group picture.

At this time, I could feel my mood start to dip down low. For some reason, even though it wasn't exactly my thing, I began feeling as if I had missed out on a worthwhile experience. I didn't think there'd ever be a time where we'd have a "Crystal Ball" in an actual crystal cave. Out of all times, why did things have to crash on me _then_? Not to mention, I had pulled out Faith from the ball early because she was worried about _me_. Not only did I keep myself from going, but I had also kept her too. All because I didn't really want anything to do with Twilight.

I was so self-absorbed with my stupid thoughts that I hadn't even thought about how Faith had felt after missing the rest of the ball. Instead of being all depressed because of some dumb heartbreak, I could have at least done something like have one dance with Faith. But, no. I was too busy groaning over things I had been overthinking about for the longest time.

As if things couldn't have gotten any worse, I absentmindedly continued to slowly scroll forward until I came across a certain picture that ultimately was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was a photo of Twilight and Timber Spruce. Honestly, I only had a glance at it before I firmly pressed the home button and finally shut off my screen.

"Sorry." I apologized to Faith, passing by her as she looked at me with a curious look.

"Huh? For what? I don't mind." She returned.

She must have been thinking I was apologizing for having her wait, but in reality, that apology stemmed from the trouble I had selfishly pulled her into last night. I felt my attitude descend into a bitter and sour one at a fast pace, so I didn't explain myself. Instead, I continued walking ahead without so much a word. As much as I knew Faith would easily be able to figure out that something was bothering me, there was no way I had the time to calmly put on a mask in an attempt to keep her from worrying.

* * *

I wasn't sure what Faith had wanted to do after, but I immediately headed back toward our tent. I didn't have any plans to go out, and I believed it had something to do with the possibility of locking eyes with the one person I wasn't in the mood to see, _especially_ if she was with Timber.

"H-Hey…" I heard Faith softly call me as I pulled the right front flap to the side and slightly ducked underneath to enter inside.

As much as I didn't want to get into the topic, I couldn't necessarily leave her hanging, especially after the meaningful heartfelt talk we just had out on the boat.

"I'm just really frustrated." I shared, keeping my back turned against her. "About a lot of things. Maybe everything."

I pulled up my phone and noticed a new text message from Sunset Shimmer.

 _Sorry for the lame joke._

I ignored it and lightly tossed my phone onto my bed, where I later decided to take a seat on. I grasped my forehead with my right hand and shut my eyes for a bit in order to recoup as best as I could. It wasn't a surprise when I felt Faith taking a seat right by my side.

"You don't need to be here with me." I told her, feeling myself being thrown into a downward spiral of guilt since she was stuck in here with me when we only had so little time of camp before we'd leave. "You should see if the others are still swimming. You don't need to waste your entire time at camp because of me."

"Hm." She softly smiled and chuckled. "You're starting to sound like me now. I'm not wasting my time at all. Whatever we do together is time well spent in my book."

As much as I appreciated her response, I didn't exactly feel well enough to speak. My mind had been in a sinking state, and at the moment, all I could do was keep as still as I could in order to not become submerged in a sea of emotions. However, whatever I did, it felt as if the sea was rising no matter what.

"…is it about her?" She asked worriedly.

I slightly turned my head away and felt my hand grip my head a bit tightly as I nodded.

I could feel eyes remained locked onto me, and her caring behavior only made things all the worse for me.

"You should go. Really." I nearly ordered while trying to keep a calm voice.

Whatever that I felt was about to happen within the tent, I didn't want her to witness any of it.

A few seconds passed before I felt her weight pull away from the bed. I continued facing away from her as I silently listened for her footsteps. I expected them to move outside the tent, but they didn't.

"You like to bottle your emotions up a lot, don't you?" I heard. "I don't think you've ever really opened up to me before. I used to think that you were just crazy good at not letting anything get to you like this."

My hand began to slowly ball up into a frustrated fist.

"You don't need to be ashamed." She reassured softly. "It happens to all of us. That's why…I'm here for you. Please…" She encouraged. "Don't fight it alone."

I cautiously turned my head over to her and noticed her taking up an angelic stance. Her arms had been spread out wide open, and she continued to gaze upon me with concerned yet inviting eyes. She was waiting for my next move. She was still in her swimsuit, yet here she was acting like a guidance counselor for me to confide in.

There was no way I could see myself rejecting the kind of vulnerable care she was trying to give me.

I slowly stood up and faced her.

The two of us continued to stare at each other before I began to gradually step towards her. Throughout the entire time, she did not once break her observation of me. She firmly locked her eyes with mine, and it was clear that she had no intention to turn them away for whatever reason. At least not until she fulfilled her desire to save me.

Finally, I dipped my head and rested it against her shoulder. At this time, I felt her arms wrap around my back, and she began to offer me words of encouragement.

"Things will get better. I promise." She swore. "I was in the same boat as you, remember? But, we grow from these kinds of things. I almost thought that my life was pretty much over a few years ago. But, then I met you. And, I swear to you with all of my heart that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. You'll get through this, and I'll be with you every step of the way to help pick you back up, should you ever fall."

I was usually always the one to pick Faith up when she was down in the past, and one of the reasons I always forced myself to keep my emotions in check was to feel like I was capable of being someone she could look up to for advice. Someone who she thought she could count on to get through the bad times.

Now, it was practically the other way around. Even though I told her that I couldn't give her a proper answer to her confession, she was clearly still holding up strong, unlike me with Twilight. Here, she obviously cared much more about my emotional wellbeing over the fact that I had her on hold when it came to our questionable relationship.

Feeling the welcoming warmth from her body envelop me, it almost felt as if it had been slowly but surely peeling off the layers of my invisible mask. At the same time, I couldn't help but admire how strong she had really been. That was just like her. She was just…well...like an angel.

It was only a matter of time until I couldn't hold back anymore. I could feel tears slip through the dam of my closed eyes before they soon felt as if they had been gushing out. I returned Faith's embrace by sliding my hands across her waist and tightening them as if I wanted no chance for the two of us to be torn apart.

It was the first time she had ever seen me in such a vulnerable state. While I still felt a little embarrassed about it, I felt much more relieved to know that she was willing to bear through it at all for my sake. Eventually, I found myself wiping my eyes as I cautiously pulled away from her.

"Better?" She asked me caringly as if she had been an experienced mother.

I quietly nodded. "Yeah. Thank you…Faith." I expressed appreciatively.

She shared an uplifting smile at me before she drew in and planted a kiss on my cheek. "I hope that isn't too much." She seemed to return jokingly.

I couldn't help but feel the corners of my mouth lightly lift up into a smile as well. "You're dumb."

* * *

For the remainder of camp, Faith and I spent as much of it as we could together in order to make up the busyness and chaotic nature of the first half of the week. To be honest, most of those activities didn't exactly involve the other girls for previously mentioned reasons, but I don't think it really took away from the experience at all. In reality, I was sure I ended up growing much closer to Faith than ever before.

Before we knew it, we were getting on the bus back home with our luggage in our hands.

"Oh, Rarity." I caught her attention as we lined up outside the bus. "I still have the suit you lent me for the ball. If you want, I can give it back to you when we're back home."

She shook her head. "It's yours to keep, darling, so there's no need. _However_ , I wouldn't mind a little help with my bags when we get back." She playfully winked, causing me to chuckle softly before I nodded my head.

"Yeah, sure."

Just like on the way to Camp Everfree a week ago, the bus ride back was pretty much the same going home. The most noticeable difference was the fairly loud chatter revolving around the experience each and everyone had their time at camp. We heard most of this come from Sunset Shimmer and the other girls, seeing as they had sat right in front of Faith and me. Despite the noise, Faith and I managed to tune it out with some always enjoyable music from her phone.

"How was your guys' time at camp?" We heard from our free ear.

Sunset Shimmer had been facing us from the seat in front of us.

"Oh, you have no idea." Faith answered with a jubilant smile. "I think it's fair to say that it can hardly be put into words."

"Even throughout the entire interference of crazy magic?" Sunset asked with a sly smirk.

"Yep!" Faith returned cheerfully. "But, to tell you the truth, I think it'll be nice having a break when we're back home." She turned towards me and gave me a teasing grin. "I think we're still getting used to the whole magic business when it comes to you and your friends."

"Don't get _too_ comfortable now. If you're gonna stick with us, it might be a good idea to get used to the possibility of magic happening out of the blue like that."

"I think we'll be just fine." Faith believed. "Whatever happens, I know exactly who to count on to be there when I need it."

The two of them sent me a mischievous look, and I could only imagine it had something to do with their private talk that one other night. Nevertheless, those looks didn't last long as Sunset Shimmer hit me with another question.

"Oh, hey. Did you get my text? I sent you some pictures…and a bad joke. I hope you didn't gag or cringe from it." She mentioned.

I managed to smile back softly. "Yeah. They were good pictures. Sorry for not responding. I was kind of busy."

" _Clearly_." Sunset said strangely, quickly sparing a glance at Faith.

However, it appeared Faith only shrugged her shoulders lightly in response.

Campers began to disperse once we were back at CHS, but the majority of them hung around and continued to converse. This time, without hiding, I willingly fulfilled my promise to Rarity and helped bring her things. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what had changed in me to do this for her. Maybe I was just glad to be home. Maybe I came to appreciate her friendship a little more. I don't know. What I did know was that I just _felt_ a lot better. Like a load had been thrown off of my chest. Maybe I had Faith to thank for it all.

"Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea if you could accompany me on trips to the mall." Rarity brought up as I placed the last of her things into the vehicle she was taking back home. "It would certainly prove worthwhile to have someone carry your things while you focus more on what's in the display window."

While I didn't take it too seriously, I still turned back and placed a hand on my hip as I raised my eyebrow at her.

"It's a joke, darling." She clarified. "However, I do find myself frequenting the dress shops from time to time. If you find me at such a time, do feel free to accompany me."

"Yeah. I'll keep that in mind…" I answered, digging a hand into my right pocket. No matter how nicely she had put it, I couldn't get rid of the feeling that she'd encourage me to offer "assistance" should I take her up on her offer. Either way, she _did_ give me a suit that someone like me would probably have to spend a fortune on. I couldn't ignore that, but I definitely didn't want to become some kind of pack mule on demand.

"You do have my contact on your phone, yes?" She slightly waved her phone in front of me. "Should you have any questions pertaining to embroidery or dressmaking in general, or maybe you'd just like a simple chat over a nice hot cup of tea, don't hesitate to reach me."

"Will do." I responded simply.

With one last gleeful smile, she went about with whatever business or plans she had in line next. "Ta-ta!"

I lifted my hand up to give her a little wave before I began returning to the grounds where those that hadn't left yet hung around. I gave a brief scan of the remaining students and tried to find Faith in the crowd. However, another voice introduced itself from somewhere close by.

"Hi, Chase." A soft-spoken tone reached me.

"Hm?" I turned in the direction of the sound and found Fluttershy approaching me with a timid-like stance. "Oh, hey, Fluttershy."

"Um, I wasn't sure if we'd see each other again during the break, so I just wanted to tell you that I hope you have a good rest of your break." She shared.

"Hey, thanks." I genuinely appreciated. "You too. But, really, it's not like I'm not down to do something else. Whatever you guys have in mind, I'm sure especially _Faith_ will be all over it. Knowing her, she'll drag me into it either way. We still have a good amount of time before school starts, so, you know."

She gently nodded with a pleased grin. "You should definitely stop by the pet shop at the mall. You might just be inspired to find a new lifelong furry friend."

"Gummy's not furry though!" An energetic voice chimed in.

"Well, that's because he's not even re—"

Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack stopped by. Applejack had just finished bumping her elbow against Rainbow Dash as if she had been in the middle of bringing up something unnecessary, leaving her to give a short cry and rub her shoulder softly.

"It was good working with you at camp. It's always handy to know someone who knows their way around a hammer and some wood." Applejack mentioned to me.

"It's not really that hard…" I rubbed the back of my head as I looked away a little bashfully.

"You'd be surprised how hard it can be for _some_ people to put a simple nail into a piece of wood." Her eyes shifted to the side as if she had someone in particular on her mind. "Anyway, we're about to head off. We'll see y'all later, okay?"

"Okay!" Fluttershy contently responded back and faced me as they continued walking away. "I guess I better get going too. Thanks again for the walk back at camp."

"Yeah, no problem. I'll see you later." I acknowledged, allowing her to comfortably step past me to get ready to head on home.

I resumed my search for Faith, seeing as her mom would be picking us back up to take home. However, the search had been placed on a temporary hold when I heard a sudden series of barks close by. I found Spike barking at a particular something in the distance, but it definitely didn't sound happy like his usual barks.

"Spike, it's just a cat!" Twilight bent down and picked him up to carry him in her arms. "You know better than to do that."

"That cat was giving me a dirty look!" He argued.

"Unless that cat could talk like you do, I don't think they're worth getting upset over." She stated and chuckled lightly. Eventually, she caught me observing their conversation and soon turned away sadly.

I felt at fault for this. Despite still being in the middle of getting over a nasty heartbreak, I felt as if I should have acted sincerer about her own feelings. It wasn't her fault that I was too scared to tell her the truth. Although it was still going to be hard to see her and _not_ think about what could've been, I couldn't let this rift between us stay. With all the courage I could muster, I began walking towards her and Spike.

"Hey, Twilight…" I greeted uncomfortably.

"Oh. Hey…" She jumped at the sight of me and adjusted her glasses as she answered in a similar fashion.

I still felt extremely hesitant about what I had wanted to say next, but it had to come out one way or another. "…I just wanted to say that I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings the other night."

" _You're_ sorry?" She asked in a small state of confusion. "You're the one who got hurt, not me…"

I shook my head. "Either way, I probably should have acted more responsibly. It's not your fault for how I felt anyway." I paused for a few seconds in order to gather the right words for what I wanted to say next. "I don't want to beat around the bush. I'd be lying if I said that things will be back to the way they were before between us, but I don't want what we already have to be lost because of it. To tell you the truth, I think I just need some time to get over it. So, if you see me acting weird around you or something, don't think it's because of you or anything. I don't know how long it'll be until things are completely fine."

"I see…" She lowered her pupils slowly towards the ground as if she had been hit with a sudden wave of guilt. "I'm sorry too."

"Why?" I inquired, finding her apology unnecessary after what I had just told her.

"For the way I acted. I told you that I wanted to spend more time with you and Faith after the Friendship Games, but I completely acted the opposite at camp. I just…"

"Forget about it." I suggested. "Really. Just forget about it. You do you, and I'll do me. There's no point in bringing up these kinds of things anymore. I just don't want us to completely stop talking for the most part. I don't want our friendship to break because of something stupid like this. Let's just give it time, and maybe things will work out in the end."

It took her a while, but she finally nodded lightly and seemed to agree with me.

"I don't get it. What's going on?" Spike asked as he turned his head back and forth between us.

"It's nothing, Spike." Twilight told him and turned back to me. "We're going to start heading home. I guess I'll catch you later?"

I simply nodded. I didn't have any words to tell her that gave off the impression that we'd be seeing each other again as good and close friends. It was definitely going to be hard, but as previously mentioned, I didn't want to lose her support over something stupid like this.

With that, she carried Spike firmly and began to walk past me. Picking my head back up, I did the same.

After some time searching, I finally found Faith in a group conversation with Flash and Sunset. I didn't have a clue on what they had been talking about, but they seemed to welcome me nonetheless.

"Hey, Star Chaser, you play any instruments?" Flash asked.

"No…" I shook my head.

I hardly remembered touching a musical instrument unless one of those fake guitar controllers counted.

"We're on the same boat." Faith added. "We're not really music-y types."

"You may not play an instrument, but you definitely make a mean dish of sweets." Sunset crossed her arms and smirked playfully over at Faith.

Faith giggled softly before her eyes lightly shot open. She reached for her phone and pulled it out to read something on her screen. Then, she spared me a glance with a jubilant grin. "It was nice talking to you guys but our ride's here."

"No problem. Let's meet up again soon!" Sunset suggested.

"Just name the time and place!" Faith returned cheerfully before she gestured me along with her head. "Come on."

I gave a small wave to the two before I went on ahead.

Faith's eyes immediately lit up at the sight of her mother's car, and she even shared a discernible joyous chuckle as she began racing towards the driver's side of the vehicle. The corners of my lips stretched out from her adorable reaction as I followed behind her.

By the time I caught up, she had already been squeezing her mom tightly, and I was almost afraid that she was cutting off any circulation of air she may have needed from her lungs. Nevertheless, it was impossible to ignore the surplus of joy radiating from both their faces. It had only been a week, but to them, it seemed like it had been years. Well, I could only imagine that that was how it was like.

"I take it you had a good time?" She asked her daughter.

"It was really crazy. But, in a good way!" Faith answered. "Actually, there's something I wanted to ask you."

"Hm? What's that?"

"I know I already brought this up before we left, but do you think we head out to the beach really soon? By really soon, I mean _soon_. I don't think I'm quite done with camping yet."

Her mother chuckled. "Can you really call it camping? It's just a home away from home."

"You know what I mean!"

"Hm." She thought for a brief moment. "Your aunt hasn't mentioned anything about using it recently. I don't see why not. When did you want to go?"

"As soon as possible!" Faith chirped.

"Oh? Then, how about we make a quick stop home and we can start heading there after? You already have most of your stuff packed up, right?"

"Totes!" Faith lifted up her bag happily.

Her mother turned and found me quietly observing their conversation with a still smile on my face. "Will you be coming with us, Chase?"

"Oh, he's _definitely_ coming!" Faith glanced over at me with a set of determined and furrowed eyebrows. "It's not a vacation unless he's there."

"Sure." I answered for myself. "A few more days away from home sounds pretty good right now."

Not that my time at camp was bad, but the past week was pretty rough. When I thought about it, I never really _truly_ relaxed at Camp Everfree. Before the crazy incident with the all-around magic, I was mostly spending the majority of my time with the dock, and, of course, after everything passed, there was the situation with Twilight. Isolated time away from everything was probably just what I needed.

"Come on in." Faith's mother invited as she opened the door to her vehicle. "I'll take us back home." Faith and I loaded our bags into the back and hopped onto the backseats, closing the door just as her mom began starting the car. "Why don't you go ahead and tell your parents you'll be spending a few days with us?" She advised as she looked at me in her rearview mirror and strapped herself in her seatbelt.

I lightly scoffed. "Honestly, I'm pretty sure they still think I'm at Camp Everfree. I don't think I need to let them know at all."

" _Chase_." Her eyebrows lightly drew together, and the tone of her voice very lightly shifted into a scolding one. "You never know what might happen, so it's always a good idea to keep your parents updated."

I groaned softly. "Alright…" I unwillingly pulled out my phone and opened up a new text message addressed to my parents.

 _I'll be camping out for a few more days. Will let you know when I'm coming back home._

It was technically the truth, and I intentionally left the exact details vague enough so they would think I was still at Camp Everfree. I wasn't sure how they'd take me being with Faith since she was obviously a close friend. They wanted me to spend time out of the house for the break, but I wasn't sure if they would "approve" if that time was spent with friends. I believed they lowkey wanted me to undergo some kind of punishment for leaving Crystal Prep, and I did _not_ need another kind of argument, especially with everything that's happened so far.

Nevertheless, I found her mother's lips forming into a light smile as she watched me obey her. Soon after, we began leaving the school grounds underneath a setting sun.

* * *

As planned, we stopped by their home so they could gather a few things for our short trip. For a moment, I thought about going back home briefly myself, but then I remembered that my parents most likely believed I was still at Camp Everfree. It certainly wouldn't help my case if they found me walking in through the front door. While Faith and her mother got ready, I mainly spent my time patiently waiting for them in the living room.

It wasn't long before we reached the vacation home by the beach, but it was already dark for the most part when we finally arrived. After setting our things inside the house, and turning on the interior and exterior lights, we collected several pieces of wood and started a small bonfire out in the sand.

It was a similar experience to being out in the boat with Faith back at Camp Everfree, except we listened to the crackling from the fire and the soothing sound of waves crashing onto the seashore.

"This was just what I needed." Her mom kept her eyes shut as she calmly listened to the ambience around us. "It's definitely a nice change of pace from work. I guess I have your aunt and uncle to thank for this."

"I'm still surprised they don't use it all that often." Faith responded. "If I was them, I'd spend everyday living here!"

Her mother reopened her eyes to look at Faith with a teasing grin. "Well, when you're married, maybe you can ask them if they'll let you settle down here."

Faith's eyes shot open as a visible shade of red within her cheeks blended with the reflective glow from the fire. She looked as if she was just about to turn to me, but her slowly swiveling head immediately ceased as she hugged her knees closer to her chest.

As expected, her mother laughed at her reaction. For a second, I noticed her exchange a subtle glance at me before she stretched out her arms a bit oddly. She then seemed to stare out towards the stars for a moment before she began getting up. "I'm going to get started on dinner. You two know how to put out the fire, right?"

"Mm-hm." I answered.

With sand literally all around us, it'd be only a matter of seconds.

"Come back inside whenever you want. I'll let you know when it's ready." She said before she began walking back to the house.

Words continued to remain unspoken for a good while. There was something I wanted to ask Faith, but I waited until her mom had completely stepped into the house before I brought it up.

"Hey…" I caught Faith's attention.

"Huh?" She lifted her head and turned to me.

"Does your mom know…? About, you know, your feelings?"

Her face grew lightly flushed, but she didn't become over-the-top embarrassed as she had earlier. "I've…never really told her. But, I'm pretty sure I didn't have to."

"Huh?" I inquired.

"You should know that my mom can practically read me like a book." She clarified. "Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if she already knew how I felt about you before _I_ even knew it myself. If you ask me, she's probably expecting us to…um…you know…"

I could only imagine that she was trying to refer back to her mother's comment from a short while ago. However, I didn't bring it up for her sake. I decided to leave it at that until we ultimately decided to wrap things up and put out the fire as promised.

As Faith and I walked back to head inside, I caught sight of something dark and still not too far from the house. If I wasn't mistaken, there was this black and white cat just staring at us as we made our way to the door. It wasn't surprising that a cat would do this, of course, but I found it more perplexing to see a cat all the way out here. Most notably, while the majority of its head was black, there was a contrasting white spot around its right eye.

"Hm? What's up?" Faith called out after having noticed me lagging a bit behind.

"Oh, nothing." I answered and continued following her back.

* * *

After dinner, Faith and I lounged casually in her room as usual. The two of us lazed around in her bed, and it wasn't until I got a good look at the sleepwear she had changed into when I began questioning the very idea of our common practice.

"Hey...um…" I began saying, causing her to turn to her side and face directly at me.

"Hm?" She questioned.

My lips felt a little glued together as I attempted to bring up what I had wanted to talk to her about.

"…do you still think it's a good idea to…uh…well…do this?" I managed to ask.

"Huh?" Her left eyebrow raised in confusion. "'This'? What do you mean?"

"You know…" I tried to hint towards the idea in mind without outright blurting it out. "Lying together like this."

Her eyebrows now drew together in worry. "Is it weird now?" She asked before her eyelids began to slowly lower sadly. "Because of what I said?"

"N-No!" I exclaimed out, figuring that she had been blaming herself in a negative light. "It's just…well…since I know…I guess…it's um…kind of…"

I had been hesitating with my words a lot, mostly because I never had to get into the in-depth explanation of why it may raise up some questionable possibilities when it came to sleeping together. Before this, we had only been close friends, almost as if we had been longtime childhood friends, so neither of us really questioned it. However, now that I knew how she really felt about me, it felt extremely awkward to try to bring something like that up.

"Kind of what?" She answered, the look on her face genuinely clueless to what I had been struggling to refer to.

She was so innocent, just as she had been when it came to our tent assignments back at Camp Everfree. In fact, I actually began feeling a little guilty for thinking the precautional thoughts in my mind at the moment.

"It's nothing." I retracted with a small smile. "I'm just being stupid again."

Why try fixing something that isn't broken?

"Dummy." Her lips drew outwards into a cute smile. "Hey, do you want to go out into the water tomorrow? Maybe this time, you could _actually_ get in with me?"

"Yeah, sure." I nearly said without hesitation. "I want to make it up to you for being such a gloomy pain back at camp."

"You don't have to make anything up for me." She stated with the brightest smile. "It's what I'm here for." The two of us seemed to stare at each other for a good while before she nervously sat up and reached for the light in her room. "Well, better get some sleep! We've got a whole few days to ourselves, and I'm _not_ going to let it go to waste!"

After she shut the light and allowed the dark to fill her room, she made several motions on the bed and appeared to snuggle herself comfortably underneath the confines of her sheets. I quietly turned onto my back and stared at the empty ceiling for a moment. When I closed my eyes, a particular image came to mind.

As I fought to get some sleep, I couldn't help but find Faith sneaking her way into my head. It was almost as if she literally wanted to spend time together in my "mental space" even while we slept. Still, even after this entire week, I could certainly say that I didn't find any part of our strong bond faltering the least like she was partially afraid of.

After all, there was no way either of us could throw away everything that we've been through just because of something like our feelings. Of course, thinking this only made me want to get back to her in regards to her feelings as soon as possible, but my own feelings and thoughts were still a bit cloudy and obscure…

Even so, I knew for a fact that there was a certain kind of warmth I had for Faith that I couldn't ever imagine letting go. Something that drew me closer to her…

* * *

 _Outside, the bicolored cat gradually drew itself away from the silent household._

" _Hm." It lightly snickered. "This might not be so bad after all. I think I just found my trump card."_

* * *

 ** _Some time in the future…_**

* * *

 _A pounding sensation continued to constantly nag at my head. Using my hand to hold my head steady and block the majority of the bright and intense flaring light ambushing me from above, I managed to make eye contact with the agitating interrogator in front of me._

" _So, that is how you came across your magic?" She asked unsympathetically. "It all started at Camp Everfree? Right under everyone's noses?"_

"… _that's how it started…" I repeated exhaustively, fed up with the kind of treatment I had been receiving thus far._

 _It was almost hard to get a good look at her, considering the fact that I had been covering the majority of my eyes with my hand in order to protect them from the brutal light. Not to mention my surroundings were practically nothing but shadows other than the occasional outline of differentiating furniture standing still inside the darkness. In all of its irony, the tables had been turned against me. It was as if she now controlled the shadows for herself._

" _Don't think you'll be getting out of here anytime soon." She informed with a rather aggravated and stern look on her face. "You have a lot of explaining to do. For you and the others."_

 _I couldn't respond. Actually, I didn't want to. All I did was just look away in silence._

" _Let me be clear with you over your current situation, Star Chaser. I don't know what kind of a student you were at Crystal Prep, but I'll have you know that I will not accept such deviant behavior at this school. For your own good, I highly suggest you explain yourself at once. And give me nothing but the whole truth."_

 _I sighed heavily and felt my forehead drag against my hand. As much I as I didn't want to acknowledge the fact that I had no other choice, I reluctantly obeyed._

* * *

 **Final Note:**

 **As those of you that are reading may be aware, I am working to sort of "move on" when it comes to writing with the MLP universe. This takes Equestria Girls into account. I've been struggling to wrap up things with the main story, despite cutting _a lot_ of episodes from the original source, which I feel is a pretty big sign for me to take a _long_ break from MLP. **

**In regards to the future of this side-story, it is honestly unknown. I don't think I ever planned to get this far, and even though I have ideas for its continuation, I'm not sure when those ideas will see the light of day. If you don't already know, I want to _really_ get started on my original content already. That's what I ultimately want at this point, considering I've been holding back on those ideas for several years now. **

**However, I do have this to say: If you hold interest for the original characters introduced in this side story, such as Chase and Faith, I'm glad to let you know that they didn't just come out of nowhere. I've been making certain references since the Friendship Games story that I'm sure no one here would really get, and that's because those references come from their original story, a story from a part of my original content that I tend to bring up so much in talks like this.**

 **Granted, let me make one thing clear. My original content, such as Chase and Faith's story, will NOT have anything to do with MLP, hence the keyword "original". In other words, don't be expecting to see Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, etc playing a role in that story because anything to do with MLP will not be there. And, if I may, one of the major reasons why I've been wanting to get started on this story for so long is that I feel... "restricted" when it comes to MLP. Even though I've already pushed the boundaries by telling a story that's a lot more oriented towards an older audience rather than the initial target audience of the original source, I still feel restrained when it comes to what I can write as long as it's still connected to MLP. With my own story, I can actually cover much more "serious" and even "dark" themes/topics, things a lot of you can probably really relate to as an audience.**

 **I've kept the conclusion to this side-story somewhat open, in the event that sometime in the future I come back to it. But, I don't want to promise that I will because I don't know what the future has in store for me. In the event that I never return to this story, I hope that maybe you can interpret the words written in italics as something else.**

 **At any point, I can't ignore the fact that I've been practically hurting to get started on my own work already, and I'm planning to have that be my main focus after I finish doing what I need to do with A New Hero. Similar to the ending presented here, I will probably leave A New Hero with a somewhat open but satisfactory ending as well in the possible event I return with a very select few episodes. Of course, that's only if the show is actually going to end with Season 9. I can't see myself going on if it keeps going way beyond that lol.**

 **Lastly, I want to deeply thank everyone who has stuck around since the beginning. Some of you may be new, or some of you may be longtime readers since like 2011. Either way, I want to thank you guys. This entire series of stories has served as a great amount of practice and learning for me, and I'm hoping to continue to improve. I also hope that most, if not all, of you will stay with me and support me when it comes to future content I want to make.**

 **Again, thanks for reading.**


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